Chinese officials are buying up medical masks in the virus-wracked country from factories that typically supply hospitals around the world, forcing manufacturers to boost output globally and hospitals to ration supplies.
Masks are essential protective gear for medical workers treating patients potentially infected with the newly identified coronavirus, which has spread across China and beyond. China is one of the world’s top producers of medical masks and other gear. Now officials there are directing much of that supply to the front lines of the outbreak, leaving customers in the U.S. and other countries to look elsewhere for masks as global supplies tighten.
Medicom Group, a Montreal-based mask maker, said it received a letter from officials in Shanghai ordering it to sell output from its factory in the city to the local government.
“They’ve got to take care of their people as well,” said Medicom Chief Executive Ronald Reuben. “It’s disruptive, but what can you do?”
Medicom is trying to ramp up production in Shanghai but its workforce has been winnowed by travel restrictions that kept many employees from returning to the plant after the Lunar New Year. “They are working around the clock,” he said.
Officials in India and Taiwan have banned exports of medical masks. Medicom, meanwhile, is raising output at factories in France and Augusta, Ga., as demand has swelled for masks produced in other countries. The French plant, which typically makes around 170 million masks a year, has received orders for 500 million.
3M Co. MMM 3.24% said the Shanghai municipal government is requiring additional “supervision and control” of some of its facilities in China as a result of the outbreak. The local government has taken responsibility for orders and delivery of 3M respirators in Shanghai, company spokeswoman Jennifer Ehrlich said. She added that respirators 3M makes in China typically are sold there.
The local government in Dongguan is buying all the masks from a factory owned by Makrite Industries Inc. in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub, the company said. Some of those masks are typically shipped to customers including retailer Home Depot Inc. and Cardinal Health Inc., a medical-device manufacturer and distributor.
“We need to support the government first until it gets better,” Makrite CEO Bob Wen said. He said officials were helping Makrite fill travel-related staffing gaps, which have crimped output at the factory, where typical volume of 160,000 masks a day has fallen to 40,000 a day since the Lunar New Year holiday.
A letter dated Feb. 3 from China’s State Council to one manufacturer said the government would buy its entire supply of surgical masks and protective clothing, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The letter also said the government would set up a national reserve that would absorb any surplus caused by the emergency.
An official whose phone number was listed in the letter referred a request for comment to a government information department, which didn’t respond. Municipal officials in Shanghai and Dongguan didn’t reply to requests for comment.
The coronavirus that first appeared late last year in Wuhan, in central China, has infected more than 28,000 people and killed some 560. Most cases have appeared in mainland China, but people have also fallen sick in more than a dozen other countries, including the U.S. The State Department has told U.S. citizens to avoid travel to China, and major airlines have suspended flights to and from the country.
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Direct Relief, a nonprofit based in Santa Barbara, Calif., that provides medical supplies during disasters, is sending air shipments of more than 300,000 masks to hospitals in China.
The medical-grade masks most in demand are known as N95 respirators because they block at least 95% of very small particles and are used in hospital and industrial settings. They are more advanced than the pleated masks many people wear to prevent the spread of disease.
Used in evaluating illnesses including potential cases of measles and tuberculosis, the masks are typically discarded after one wear, and staff treating a typical high-risk patient can go through 50 a day, physicians said.
Some customers who buy masks from Chinese factories said their supplies are running short. Industrial supply company Seattle Glove Inc. said it sold its typical monthly volume of about 200,000 face masks in four days about a week ago.
“I have nothing, and I don’t have anything coming,” said Doug Tran, the company’s vice president.
W.W. Grainger Inc. an industrial distributor that buys masks from China and elsewhere, said it is out of inventory and that orders are piling up.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said no manufacturer of products it regulates has yet reported disruptions suggesting shortages of critical medical products. Reporting by mask manufacturers is voluntary. The FDA said it would respond to potential disruptions by expediting review of alternative supplies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintains a strategic stockpile of medical equipment including face masks and other protective gear.
The relatively small number of companies that make masks in the U.S. are increasing production. Louis M. Gerson Co. is expanding production at its factory in Middleboro, Mass., to seven days a week, from four. “We probably have 12 months of orders that our existing customers would like shipped within a week,” CEO Ronald Gerson said.
Many suppliers have capped orders for masks at just above typical levels, said executives with Premier Inc. and Vizient Inc., which negotiate contracts for medical products on behalf of hospitals. Doing so can help distribute goods during a shortage or prevent hoarding by customers who fear a shortage, the executives said.
Some hospitals are searching for new suppliers and looking for ways to deplete stockpiles more slowly, such as by limiting work that requires masks to select employees.
New York hospital system Northwell Health is working out how to prioritize masks at high-risk locations among its 800 clinics, and it is asking staff to reuse masks when possible, under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Mark Jarrett, Northwell’s deputy chief medical officer and chief quality officer, said.
Kaiser Permanente, the hospital and health insurance system based in Oakland, Calif., will limit the number of staff outfitted with masks to select groups that will respond in the event of a local outbreak, said Dr. David Witt, Kaiser’s Northern California hospital epidemiologist. That means fewer masks wasted in fittings, he said.
Dr. Witt said Kaiser started preparing for shortages soon after the outbreak became public. “It’s been one long day since then,” he said. “We are seeing signs the shortage is starting.”
—Sharon Terlep in New York, Qianwei Zhang in Beijing and Zhao Yueling in Shanghai contributed to this article.
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com and Melanie Evans at Melanie.Evans@wsj.com
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2020-02-06 10:30:00Z
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-outbreak-strains-global-medical-mask-market-11580985003
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