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KUALA LUMPUR: While pharmaceutical companies are gaining momentum with the positive news about COVID-19 vaccination, Top Glove Corporation Bhd
expects demand for exam gloves to double when vaccines are ready by the end of the year.
Its chairman, Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai, said that in the long term, the glove business remained good and healthy, and that the company’s share price depended on earnings and performance.
“Our share price has been doing well for the last 11 months. We have had some setbacks recently and we expect it to be temporary and back to normal.
“Exam gloves are needed to inject vaccines. The world needs to produce seven billion vaccines and it will need seven billion pairs of gloves,” he said today during an updated Covid-19 press conference.
Despite the expected increase in demand, the world’s largest manufacturer of rubber gloves had to close some of its facilities due to the high rate of COVID-19 infection among its workers.
Top Glove’s 20 facilities are temporarily closed with eight production lines still in operation, reducing their production by between 10% and 20%.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Saravanan Murugan previously said it was due to poor living conditions in workers’ dormitories, which Lim denied.
“We welcome you to visit us again. Because since the minister’s visit, our (housing) condition has continued to improve. Why this is so … is because we invested more money to improve the facilities and we want to do it quickly.
“So it was a big surprise when such comments were made. We need to clarify with the ministry to see what areas we did not do correctly and how we can improve,” he said.
When asked if the large number of cases involving his workers would cause contamination of the gloves, Lim said those cases are unlikely due to the factory environment, which is between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius.
“Inside the oven it is around 110 degrees Celsius. The COVID-19 virus cannot survive in this much heat. Regarding the packaging of our gloves, our workers are equipped with personal protective equipment and have no direct contact with the gloves.
“When we ship via containers, the temperature is warm, above 40 degrees Celsius and it will take about a month to ship to Europe or other countries. There is definitely no pollution,” he said.
Shares of Top Glove fell further after its confirmation yesterday that 20 of its factories in Klang would be shut down temporarily after a surge in Covid-19 infections among its workers.
The glove maker has seen its share price drop by 30% since the beginning of November.
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