Zeiss donates protective supplies to Guangzhou's Huangpu district on Feb 10. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

German optical giant Zeiss donated 1,500 pairs of plain glasses and 500 goggles to Huangpu district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Feb 10, aiming to help workers fighting on the front line against the novel coronavirus pneumonia.

The move came in the wake of the enterprise's first donation of 500 pairs of plain glasses to Huanggang, Hubei province soon after the epidemic broke out in late January.

To date, Zeiss has donated more than 5,000 pairs of glasses and over two million pieces of lens cleaning wipes, worth over 2.5 million yuan ($358,668), to medical workers on the front line.

The first batch of 600,000 pieces of cleaning wipes has been delivered to hospitals in the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, and Anhui, as well as Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Shanghai, while the other 1.5 million pieces were sent to designated hospitals for pneumonia in cities severely hit by the epidemic.

Wearing glasses can help medical workers prevent infection, while cleaning wipes can clean and sterilize goggles and glasses without leaving marks so that frontline medical staff can work with clearer vision, said Wilson Peng, managing director of Zeiss China, which is based in Guangzhou.

"Zeiss is paying close attention to the latest progress of the epidemic and will continue the donations," added Peng.