Bangalore, 3 April 2020: A special cargo flight from Kochi airport took off on March 30 with nearly 8000 boxes of high value sterile surgical gloves to Serbia, totaling some 3.5 million pieces. The gloves were supplied by St Mary’s Rubber Pvt Ltd, based in Kanjirappally in Central Kerala.

On February 9, India had imposed a ban on export of all PPEs. But this ban was lifted for some PPEs like surgical gloves due to adequate stock in the country.

According to industry sources, India requires about 4 billion pieces of gloves annually. Nearly 60 per cent of this demand is for low value examination gloves or about 2.4 billion pieces. These examination gloves are imported mostly from Malaysia and Vietnam. The 15 + Indian manufacturers, concentrated in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu supply the high value surgical gloves.

If the nation needs, the manufacturers can increase production of these gloves by 20 million pieces per month. The Kerala company sent out another consignment of surgical gloves too in the week.

On the other hand, there is a shortage of low value examination gloves as the month-long lockdown in Malaysia to fight the COVID-19 pandemic has limited its supply. The world’s top glove manufacturer by volume, Top Glove Corp Bhd, is facing raw material and packaging supply constraints and labor shortage, according to local media reports.

When countries are hoarding most of their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), India helps the world and early this week exported 3.5 million pieces of surgical gloves to Serbia