Margma: No impact from US ban on powdered gloves

PETALING JAYA: There will be no impact from the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ban on powdered medical gloves starting Jan 18 next year as Malaysia exports only 2%-3% of such gloves it produces to the United States, according to the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (Margma).
The FDA announced the ban on powdered gloves for healthcare providers last week, saying they “present an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury”.
The ban entails the elimination of all powdered surgical gloves and powdered patient examination gloves from the country’s entire medical industry.
“To us, there is no loss. We can just switch to (supplying them with) powder-free gloves,” Margma president Denis Low Jau Foo told SunBiz in an interview.
“It is not that the market is going to go somewhere else, it will still come back to us,” he added, noting Malaysia has 63% share of the world market for rubber gloves.
However, he said, the association has requested a grace period before the ban is implemented, as there are still some remnants of exported powdered gloves in the country.
“We want them (FDA) to allow a few months for the gloves to be used up. That is the only petition that we are sending to the US,” he explained.
Currently, Low said, 23% of Malaysia’s exported gloves are of the powdered variety, with the remaining 77% powder-free.
Asked whether other countries will follow the US in banning powdered gloves, Low said it is unlikely to happen as most Asian, African and other North American countries are still using powdered gloves.
“Most Asian, African and North America countries are powdered glove territories, and they do not think that it is necessary to switch. By and large, the world is still using powdered gloves,” he said, noting that Malaysia exports 11%-14% of the powdered gloves it produces to the UK.
Nevertheless, Low said, if other countries are going to produce more powder-free gloves, Margma members will convert their production lines to make more powder-free gloves.
“There is no issue. We can convert our (production) lines to produce powder-free (gloves). But there must be a grace period for us to convert. It is just a matter of timing.
“But I don’t think they will switch them all at once. They will switch it gradually,” Low said, noting that most of the nitrile gloves produced in Malaysia are powder-free.