LONDON (REUTERS) - Arsenal will provide more than 30,000 free meals as well as sanitary and personal hygiene products to vulnerable people in the local community as part of a response plan to the coronavirus pandemic, the English Premier League football club said on Friday (April 10).

The north London club also pledged to donate £100,000 (S$176,400) to local organisations and a further £50,000 will go towards a Covid-19 Crisis Fund.

"The Arsenal Foundation has joined forces with HIS Church to deliver 15 tonnes of emergency supplies into Islington," the club said in a statement.

"This initiative forms part of our wider community response to Covid-19, which has seen Arsenal in the Community staff volunteer to transport front-line NHS workers."

Fellow Premier League sides Manchester United and Wolverhampton Wanderers announced support packages on Thursday to help the National Health Service (NHS) in the fight against the virus, which has killed more than 8,000 people in the country - the fifth highest in the world.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta tested positive last month and has recovered.