Precious donations of skin arrived on Thursday from the United States ready for use in pain staking labour intensive life-saving operations.
Twenty-one people remain in hospital after suffering severe gas and thermal burns in the eruption of Whakaari White Island.
New Zealand is regularly supplied by US skin banks but never before has requested this volume.
For more on this we are joined by Dr Sarah Morley, the clinical lead at NZ Blood, the agency responsible for collecting and maintaining medical skin stocks.
