Condom shortage looms after coronavirus lockdown shuts world's top producer

THEYARE MADE OF LATEX HENCE THE SLANG NAME RUBBERS

MALAYSIA WAS THE HUB OF THE RUBBER INDUSTRY POST WWII

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.


Malaysia’s Karex Bhd (KARE.KL) makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories for more than a week due to a lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus.


That’s already a shortfall of 100 million condoms, normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex, supplied to state healthcare systems such as Britain’s NHS or distributed by aid programs such as the UN Population Fund.

The company was given permission to restart production on Friday, but with only 50% of its workforce, under a special exemption for critical industries.


“It will take time to jumpstart factories and we will struggle to keep up with demand at half capacity,” Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters.

“We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” he said. “My concern is that for a lot of humanitarian programs deep down in Africa, the shortage will not just be two weeks or a month. That shortage can run into months.”

Malaysia is Southeast Asia’s worst affected country, with 2,161 coronavirus infections and 26 deaths. The lockdown is due to remain in place at least until April 14.


FILE PHOTO: A worker performs a test on condoms at Malaysia's Karex condom factory in Pontian, 320 km (200 miles) southeast of Kuala Lumpur November 7, 2012. Malaysia's Karex Industries is the world's largest condom maker by volume. Picture taken November 7, 2012. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad/File Photo

The other major condom-producing countries are China, where the coronavirus originated and led to widespread factory shutdowns, and India and Thailand, which are seeing infections spiking only now.

Makers of other critical items like medical gloves have also faced hiccups in their operations in Malaysia.

In emailed comments, a spokesman for Durex said operations are continuing as normal and the company was not experiencing any supply shortages. “For our consumers, many of whom will be unable to access shops, our Durex online stores remain open for business.”

“The good thing is that the demand for condoms is still very strong because like it or not, it’s still an essential to have,” Goh said. “Given that at this point in time people are probably not planning to have children. It’s not the time, with so much uncertainty.”

AMERIKA THIRD WORLD NATION

At some U.S. hospitals, drugs, catheters, oxygen tanks run low

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It’s not just protective facemasks that are in short supply: health workers in U.S. hospitals are reporting dwindling stocks of drugs, catheters and other medical miscellany vital for caring for a surge in patients stricken by the coronavirus outbreak.
Marney Gruber, a doctor who works in emergency rooms around New York City, said a number of commonly used medications are in short supply, and at least one hospital had run out of central line kits, which are used to administer drugs to patients in intensive care.

“Never ever before have I heard of that being an issue,” Gruber said in an interview on Friday. “These are staples in emergency medicine and ICUs. These are your bread and butter, truly, your very basic essentials.”

Hospitals have quickly begun to strain under the surge as the city has become the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. At least 366 people have died in the city from the virus this month, and more than 4,700 people have been hospitalized.

The drugs running low include midazolam and fentanyl, both of which can be used to sedate patients whose lungs have been damaged by the new virus and need a mechanical ventilator to function, Gruber said.

The hospitals are also short on Levophed, which treats low blood pressure and heart problems, and Albuterol inhalers, which normally treat asthma but appear to help those suffering from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

In addition to ventilators, some hospitals are running out of oxygen tanks, Gruber said. Patients normally only use the tanks when being transported from one part of the hospital to another, but with wall-mounted oxygen units all taken, doctors have been hooking COVID-19 patients up to the tanks in intensive care unit rooms.

PLEADING FOR CLOROX WIPES

Shortages of vital protective equipment for health workers, including N95 respirator masks that fit tightly over the nose and mouth, have been widely reported in recent weeks, caused in part by poor stockpiling efforts and by disruptions in global supply chains.

But vanishing supplies of other medical resources are alarming nurses and doctors in hospitals around the country.

Dr. Kent Collin, the medical director at the emergency department of the St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea Hospital in Chelsea, Michigan, sent an email to a neighborhood mailing list soliciting donations of disinfecting wipes, which he said he could pick up from doorsteps.

“If anyone would be willing to part with your Clorox wipes, any help would be appreciated,” he wrote. “Costco is completely out at this time or else I would not have bothered you guys.”

Mary MacDonald, a nurse at the Ascension Providence Hospital in Novi, Michigan, said tearfully in a video uploaded to Facebook that she was seeing her workplace run out of fentanyl and propofol, another drug used to sedate patients on ventilators, as well as the basic painkiller acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol.

“This is truly scary and nobody’s taking it seriously,” she said.

A spokesman for the hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the hospital told the Detroit News in a statement that it was “taking proactive steps with our distributor and suppliers to ensure access to supplies.”

Simpler necessities are running short, too. In New Jersey, Dr. Lisa, who asked to be identified by her first name because she was not authorized to speak with journalists, recalled a kind offer from her aunt to make face masks after reading about the shortages.

Dr. Lisa told her the masks she needs cannot be made, but she could use more scrub caps to protect her hair.

“Well, we can make that,” she recalled her aunt saying. “We know how to sew. Send me a pattern.”

Within five minutes, her aunt had recruited other relatives to pitch in, and they mailed out 10 homemade scrub hats for her and her co-workers.

“That’s the beauty that you see in people,” Dr. Lisa said.

Haiti hospital chief kidnapped amid coronavirus emergency

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The director of one of Haiti’s top hospitals was kidnapped on Friday, prompting staff to refuse to take in new patients in protest as the impoverished country battles an outbreak of the novel coronavirus amid a spike in gang violence.


Medical staff display signs after the director of the hospital, surgeon Jerry Bitar, was kidnapped, as Haiti battles an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) amid a spike in gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jeanty Junior Augustin

Dr. Jerry Bitar, a surgeon, was kidnapped shortly after leaving for work at Hospital Bernard Mevs from his home in an upmarket neighborhood of the capital, hospital staff told Reuters.

Kidnappings for ransom have sharply increased this year amid a political and economic crisis in Haiti, which according to the World Bank is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Police confirmed 15 kidnapping cases in January alone. Gangs appear to strike indiscriminately, with victims ranging from Haitian schoolchildren, lawmakers and businessmen to foreign aid workers.

A crowd gathered outside the facility in solidarity with Bitar, who runs the hospital together with his twin brother, while staff chanted in unison calls for his release. Haitian media outlets also pleaded for bandits to free Bitar.

“In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, it is abnormal to take the hospital’s doctor,” said Jean Wilguens Charles, a local resident whose friends have received treatment at the hospital. “We demand his liberation without conditions.”

Medical assistant Claude Devil said the hospital usually attended all Haitians, including those who had no money to pay for services, but would not take in new patients while still attempting to look after existing ones as best possible.


“There are several patients waiting to be operated but we cannot work without the doctors’ order,” he said.

The relevant authorities are following the case, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

The Bernard Mevs hospital is a trauma and critical care center and is not treating coronavirus cases currently, but could need to if the disease spreads substantially in the country, where healthcare services and sanitation infrastructure are inadequate.

According to a 2019 study by the Research and Education consortium for Acute Care in Haiti (REACH), Haiti has only 64 ventilators for a population of around 11 million, which makes it especially vulnerable to an outbreak of the highly contagious coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness COVID-19.

“This is a serious concern, especially given the relatively high proportion of the population considered to be at an elevated risk,” the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote in a paper published on Friday, co-authored by its analysts Jake Johnston and Kira Paulemon.

Haitian authorities have so far confirmed eight cases of the coronavirus. President Jovenel Moise last week declared a state of emergency, ordering schools, factories, and places of worship shut to prevent the spread of the virus, closing the country’s borders to people and imposing a curfew.


But the streets continue to buzz as many in the country, where more than half the population lives under the poverty line, ignore recommendations to stay at home or practice social distancing. Many do not have access to sources of news.

Even with the best intentions, tricky access to clean water makes it difficult for Haitians to frequently wash their hands, the hygiene mantra that health experts are preaching as a top defense against the spread of the coronavirus.


Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Leslie Adler
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Doctor working with Amazon tribe tests positive for coronavirus

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A doctor working with the largest tribe in the Amazon has tested positive for the coronavirus, Brazil’s Health Ministry said on Friday, ringing alarm bells that the epidemic could spread to vulnerable and remote indigenous communities with devastating effect.


FILE PHOTO: Twenty-year-old Regiane Doroteo Guerreiro (front R), a Tikuna indigenous woman and a representative queen of amateur soccer team Wotchimaucu, sits with relatives at a Tikuna community before attending the opening ceremony of the "Peladao Verde" championship in Manaus September 17, 2011. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes/File Photo

The doctor, who has not been named, had returned from vacation on March 18 to work with the Tikunas, a tribe of more than 30,000 people who live in the upper Amazon near the borders with Colombia and Peru.

He developed a fever later that day and went into isolation, testing positive for the respiratory disease COVID-19 a week later, the ministry said.

Eight tribe members he treated on his first day back working for the indigenous health service Sesai have also been isolated in their homes and are being monitored, the ministry said.

The doctor’s infection is the first confirmed case of the virus directly present in an indigenous village. It raises fears of an outbreak that could be lethal for Brazil’s 850,000 indigenous people that have a history of decimation by diseases brought by Europeans, from smallpox and malaria to the flu.


Health experts say their way of life in communal hamlets under large thatched structures increases the risk of contagion if any single member contracts the new coronavirus. Social isolation is hard for tribes to practise.

The ministry said the doctor had no symptoms when he returned to work using a protective mask and gloves, but quarantined himself as soon as he developed a fever.

News website G1’s columnist Matheus Leitão reported that the doctor is Brazilian and may have caught the virus while vacationing in southern Brazil or on the boat ride up the Amazon to his work place at Santo Antônio do Içá.

So far, Sesai has reported four suspected cases of the coronavirus in indigenous communities, with only one in the Amazon.

But doctors fear the virus could spread fast among tribes whose immune systems often are already weakened by malnutrition, hepatitis B, tuberculosis and diabetes.


About a third of indigenous deaths in Brazil are caused by existing respiratory diseases.

The H1N1 epidemic in 2016 killed hundreds of indigenous people, mainly of the Guaraní tribe in the colder south of Brazil, where about half of them caught the bug.


Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

Nigeria needs $330 million for coronavirus battle, turns to private sector


ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria has appealed to private companies to make voluntary contributions towards the 120 billion naira ($330 million) the government says it needs to fight the coronavirus epidemic.


Two men with protective face mask walks past a poster at Wuse market, as the authorities try to limit the spread of coronavirus in Abuja, Nigeria March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

“So far, the federal government has made giant strides in the fight but it is clear that the private sector needs to step in and support efforts already being made,” Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said.

The crash in oil prices, which have fallen by nearly two- thirds this year due in large part to a coronavirus-induced demand collapse, has seriously battered Nigeria’s finances.

Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed this week pledged 6.5 billion naira to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, and a further 10 billion naira for Lagos state, which has the bulk of the nation’s confirmed cases.


“To procure all needed equipment, material, and all infrastructure needed to fight this pandemic, over N120b need to be raised,” Emefiele said.

He has formed a coalition led by the Aliko Dangote Foundation and Access Bank that is already working to raise funds.

On Friday, Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC pledged $30 million, with the help of 33 oil companies, including international majors Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil and Nigerian companies Oando, Lekoil and Seplat.

NNPC said it would offer more in partnership with downstream companies. That assistance, offered by companies, includes 200 ambulances, test kits and laboratory equipment, NNPC said in a tweet.


Bank UBA Group, led by Tony Elumelu, on Thursday pledged 1 billion naira to Nigeria as part of a broader 5 billion naira coronavirus donation. Other prominent Nigerians, including Dangote and five others, would ensure their organizations also contribute 1 billion naira each, Emefiele said.

As of Friday, Nigeria had 65 coronavirus cases and one death.

TRUMP MINI ME
Brazil's Bolsonaro says coronavirus deadly, but hunger also kills

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday returned to criticizing the lockdowns in major cities across the country, saying that the resulting hunger from the economic fallout could be more deadly than the coronavirus it was aimed at combating.

Bolsonaro said the Brazilian economy had been taking off before coronavirus hit.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

THE BEST HEALTHCARE MONEY CAN BUY

As U.S. virus cases exceed 100,000, doctors decry scarcity of drugs and equipment


NEW YORK, March 28 (Reuters) - The sum of known coronavirus U.S. cases soared well past 100,000, with more than 1,600 dead, as weary doctors and nurses coping with shortages resorted to extremes ranging from hiding scarce medical supplies to buying them on the black market.


American healthcare workers in the trenches of the pandemic appealed on Friday for more protective gear and equipment to treat a surge in patients that is already pushing hospitals to their limits in virus hot spots such as New York City, New Orleans and Detroit.

“We are scared,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in New York City’s Brooklyn borough. “We’re trying to fight for everyone else’s life, but we also fight for our lives as well, because we’re also at the highest risk of exposure.”

Doctors are especially concerned about a shortage of ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely needed for those suffering from COVID-19, the pneumonia-like respiratory ailment caused by the highly contagious novel coronavirus.

Hospitals have also sounded the alarm about scarcities of drugs, oxygen tanks and trained staff.

The number of confirmed U.S. infections rose by about 18,000 on Friday, the highest jump in a single day, to more than 103,000. The United States has led the world in coronavirus cases since its count of known infections eclipsed those of China and Italy on Thursday.


With at least 1,634 lives lost as of Friday night - also a record daily increase - the United States ranked sixth in national death tolls from the pandemic, according to a Reuters tabulation of official data.

As shortages of key medical supplies abounded, desperate physicians and nurses were forced to take matters into their own hands.

New York-area doctors say they have had to recycle some protective gear, or even resort to bootleg suppliers.

Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates in northern New Jersey described going through a “broker” to pay $17,000 for masks and other protective equipment that should have cost about $2,500, and picking them up at an abandoned warehouse.


Annette Johnson, outreach coordinator at Odyssey House Louisiana (OHL) which runs a drive-through testing site, has a consultation with a driver to see if she should be tested for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. March 27, 2020. REUTERS/Kathleen Flynn

“You don’t get any names. You get just phone numbers to text,” Salerno said. “And so you agree to a term. You wire the money to a bank account. They give you a time and an address to come to.”

Nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York said they were locking away or hiding N-95 respirator masks, surgical masks and other supplies that are prone to pilfering if left unattended.

“Masks disappear,” nurse Diana Torres said. “We hide it all in drawers in front of the nurses’ station.”

One nurse at Westchester Medical Center, in the suburbs of the city, said colleagues have begun absconding with scarce supplies without asking, prompting better-stocked teams to lock masks, gloves and gowns in drawers and closets. (Full Story)


An emergency room doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicenter of the pandemic, said he was wearing one paper face mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon run out of ventilators.

“We have hospital systems here in the Detroit area in Michigan who are getting to the end of their supply of ventilators and have to start telling families that they can’t save their loved ones because they don’t have enough equipment,” the physician, Dr. Rob Davidson, said in a video posted on Twitter.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers to require General Motors Co GM.N to start building ventilators after he accused the largest U.S. automaker of “wasting time” during negotiations.

He had previously resisted mounting calls for him to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era statute that gives the president broad procurement powers in national emergencies.


Slideshow (17 Images)

Sophia Thomas, a nurse practitioner at DePaul Community Health Center in New Orleans, where Mardi Gras celebrations late last month fueled an outbreak in Louisiana’s largest city, said the numbers of coronavirus patients “have been staggering.”

“We are truly a hotbed of COVID-19 here in New Orleans,” she said, adding that her hospital was shifting some patients to “telehealth” services that allow them to be evaluated from home.

In the nation’s second-largest city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said spiking cases were putting Southern California on track to match New York City’s infection figures in the next week.

Hospitals around the country are expected to receive some additional aid from a $2.2 trillion emergency relief bill given final passage by Congress on Friday, after days of wrangling, and signed into law by Trump. (Full Story)

The package will send cash to businesses and unemployed workers suffering from the effects of stay-at-home orders that have had the side effect of strangling the economy.

Coronavirus cases top half a million, protective gear lacking: WHO
Stephanie Nebehay, Kate Kelland


GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - Coronavirus has infected more than half a million people and killed more than 20,000 globally, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, as he appealed again for protective gear for medical staff working to save lives.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, urged countries to refrain from using medicines that have not been demonstrated to be effective against COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

“The chronic global shortage of personal protective gear is now one of most urgent threats to our collective ability to save lives,” Tedros told a Geneva news conference.

“Health workers in low- and middle-income countries deserve the same protection as those in the wealthiest countries,” he said, adding that the U.N. agency was shipping more supplies.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies expert, said the world was “moving to an uncertain future”.

“You see many countries around the world are just beginning the cycle of this epidemic. Some have been through the cycle of the epidemic like Singapore and China and are now desperately trying not to have the disease re-emerge and cause another wave of infections because of disease importations,” he said.

Elderly people and those with underlying medical conditions have been the hardest hit, but 10 to 15% of people under the age of 50 have moderate to severe infection, Ryan said.

YOUNG PEOPLE NOT IMMUNE

Asked about reports of infections in young adults, Ryan said: “For most people it is a very mild infection, most young people. But for a significant minority of people between the age of 20 and 60 this is a significant infection.”

“What is really emerging is a perception that this disease, while not fatal and not causing critical disease in a younger age group, is causing severe illness in many people,” Ryan said.

Every infection of COVID-19 presents an opportunity for onward spread, said Dr. Maria van Kerkhove.

“So even in younger populations, if you do have a mild disease and you think it’s no big deal, what the big deal is is that you may transmit to somebody else who may be part of that vulnerable population who may advance to severe disease and who may die,” she said.

The data showed that “the majority of children that are infected are experiencing mild disease,” ver Kerkhove said.

“But we do have reports, and there are some publications now that describe severe disease in children. We have reports of deaths in children. There is one in China, and I believe one in the United States as well,” she said.


Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Kate Kelland in London; writing by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Gareth Jones

Russia calls U.S. sanctions on Venezuela a 'tool of genocide' amid epidemic

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday U.S. “narco-terrorism” charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were absurd, adding that sanctions on Caracas could become “a tool of genocide” amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The U.S. government on Thursday indicted Maduro and more than a dozen other top Venezuelan officials on charges of “narco-terrorism,” the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign aimed at ousting the socialist leader.


Russia, Maduro’s longtime political and financial backer, considers those accusations “absurd” and “wild” at a time when countries across the world join efforts to fight coronavirus, the Interfax news agency cited Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying.

“We can not stress enough our call for an immediate lifting of unilateral unlawful sanctions that are turning in the current epidemic into an instrument of genocide,” Zakharova was quoted as saying.


Zakharova said Russia had supplied coronavirus test kits to Venezuela, which has reported 107 confirmed cases of the disease and that Moscow would continue helping Caracas to stop coronavirus spreading.

President Donald Trump denied that the charges were an attempt to take advantage of Venezuela at a vulnerable time when it is expected to be hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Mexican president's poll ratings hit record low in coronavirus crisis

THEY CALL AMLO A LIBERAL HE IS; A NEOLIBERAL

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Support for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has fallen below 50% for the first time, hit by criticism of his response to the coronavirus crisis, public security concerns and a struggling economy, a daily tracking poll showed on Friday.


FILE PHOTO: Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Henry Romero

The survey, by polling firm Consulta Mitofsky for newspaper El Economista, showed that Lopez Obrador’s approval rating had dropped to 49.6% from 50.1% a day earlier.

Roy Campos, the head of Mitofsky, said the coronavirus pandemic was “seriously affecting” support for Lopez Obrador, as was concern over the economic outlook.

“Just as there is fear of getting sick, there’s now fear about the economy,” Campos said.

Lopez Obrador, whose approval rating stood at 80% barely a year ago in some surveys, has suffered a steady decline in popularity since discontent over his reaction to highly publicized murders of women last month sparked protests.

The leftist, who took office in December 2018, has also come under fire for his handling of the coronavirus crisis since the first case of infection was confirmed in Mexico on Feb. 28.


While his medical experts urged people to avoid physical contact and stay at home to contain the spread of the virus, the president has continued to hold mass rallies around Mexico, shaking hands with, hugging and kissing supporters.

Over the past few days Lopez Obrador has struck a graver tone on the health crisis, encouraging people to avoid major gatherings, setting out how the government is closing down possible transmission avenues and spelling out the symptoms.

“So far the situation is controlled,” he told a regular government news conference on Friday, a day after Mexico’s tally of coronavirus cases rose to 585, with eight deaths.

Nevertheless, he has continued to blame adversaries for fanning public panic, and said he would carry on with his schedule of public events around Mexico with a tour of states in the Pacific west and northwest this weekend.

Meanwhile, Mexico tipped into recession during his first year in office, dragged down by a decline in investment spurred by concern over his unpredictable management of the economy.

Rating agency S&P downgraded Mexico’s credit rating on Thursday, flagging concern over the outlook.


Some private sector economists say the Mexican economy could contract by as much as 7% this year.

At the end of 2019, Lopez Obrador had the support of more than 59% of respondents in the Mitofsky tracking poll.