Eighteen million pieces. That was the number of medical gloves Malaysian manufacturers pledged to Wuhan in early February 2020, as the city’s hospitals reported running low on masks, suits and gloves.
The pledge came through Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok, who said the Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council and the manufacturers had agreed. The firms were approached over the Chinese New Year break. The shipment, natural rubber and nitrile alike, would go to China in batches, and the first was already on its way. Top Glove and Supermax had by then given 2.3 million pieces via local offices and distributors. Smart Glove, Hartalega and Kossan were among those following, with YTY, Brightway and Koon. According to the Malaysian Reserve, about three million pieces had reached China the week before, with the rest due within a week.
An industry that expects to be busy
The gift is only part of the picture. The industry body, Margma, said demand was climbing. Its vice president, Dr Supramaniam Shanmugam, put the global surge at 100%, as countries adopted defensive measures to avoid cross contamination. He said the sector was committed to producing at least 10% more than its current output, and expected the stepped-up production to last four to five weeks.
The arithmetic he offered was simple. Per capita consumption in China was five pairs, or 10 pieces of gloves, across a population of 1.6 billion. “Now if that per capita consumption goes up by 50%, that means another five to six billion gloves will be required,” he said. China was not short of buyers, he added. “It’s the lack of supply that we need to manage.”
The association’s president, Denis Low, pointed to precedent. In the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, medical glove use rose 17%. “Taking a lesson from the H1N1 virus and the notion that the coronavirus can be much worse, the rubber glove industry will certainly ramp up production to meet the demand,” Low said.
The position Malaysia starts from
Malaysia was already the world leader in medical gloves, shipping approximately 180 billion pieces abroad. It had also supplied over 20 million gloves in 2014 to countries hit by Ebola: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Congo.
On the outbreak itself, Rubber Journal Asia cited the World Health Organization’s tally of 2 February: 14,411 confirmed cases in China and 304 deaths, and 146 confirmed cases, 1 death, in other countries. Malaysia had 8 confirmed cases. Kok framed the donation as trade and history. China was Malaysia’s biggest trading partner for the tenth year running, and trade rose 8.1% to RM313.8 billion in 2018.
Sources
- Laman Web Rasmi KPK – RUBBER: Rubber gloves demand jumps 100% globally
- Malaysian gloves makers ready to meet demand amid nCoV spread; donates gloves to Wuhan – Rubber Journal Asia
