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 It already makes about 100 million masks per year, but soaring
demand due to the coronavirus outbreak means it is adding a third
more staff and ramping up production to seven days a week.
The plant, owned by Canadian medical supplies group Medicom, is
struggling to meet a flood of orders from pharmacies and hospitals
in Europe and parts of Asia, primarily China - where the virus has
killed more than 500 - Hong Kong and Singapore.
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"Since the virus outbreak in China, demand has been multiplied by
five and we are trying to respond to that as soon as we can,"
Medicom's Chief Operating Officer Guillaume Laverdure told Reuters
at the plant.
"We cannot answer all that (new) demand overnight, it will take a
while to ramp up manufacturing."
One of four Medicom factories producing the masks, it says it will
hire 30 new staff on top of the 100 it already has and switch to a
seven-day week by the end of February.
Honeywell, Moldex and 3M also manufacture face masks.
Though the World Health Organization only recommends their use by
people who have virus symptoms and says they do not guarantee
protection against infections, masks are also flying off pharmacy
shelves.
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In Paris, both Asian tourists and worried locals are stocking up.
Pharmacist Pascal Legrand, who sells Medicom masks, said the
situation was "extremely tense". He was looking for other
manufacturers as supply was getting tighter and prices on some
products had increased five- to ten-fold.
He said customers had been pre-ordering shipments, two of which,
totalling 3,500 masks, had already been sold.
He said 80% of his customers were Chinese visitors in France looking
to send masks back home to China, where stores had run out.
"Although some customers may be purchasing the masks out of
paranoia, it's better to be safe than sorry, especially when
visiting crowded spaces and airports," Legrand said.
France has six confirmed cases of coronavirus infection out of a
global total of over 28,000. On Thursday, China said that 563 people
had died in the outbreak since it started last month.
(Reporting by Udi Kivity and Thierry Chiarello; Writing by Ardee
Napolitano and Geert De Clercq; editing by John Stonestreet)
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