A global condom shortage is looming as the COVID-19 pandemic shutters factories and disrupts supply chains, the world’s top maker of the contraceptives said, with the UN warning of “devastating” consequences.
More than half of the world’s population has been confined to their homes as the virus marches around the planet, while governments worldwide have ordered the closure of businesses deemed non-essential.
Malaysia — one of the world’s top rubber producers and a major source of condoms — imposed a nationwide lockdown last month as infections surged to the highest level in Southeast Asia.
However, restrictions on the operations of Malaysian contraceptive giant Karex, which makes one in every five condoms globally, mean the firm expects to produce 200 million fewer condoms than usual from the middle of last month to the middle of this month.
With other producers around the world likely facing disruption and difficulties in getting condoms to market due to transport problems, supplies of contraceptives would be hit hard, Karex chief executive officer Goh Miah Kiat said.
“The world will definitely see a condom shortage,” Goh told reporters. “It’s challenging, but we are trying our best right now to do whatever we can. It is definitely a major concern — condom is an essential medical device.”
“While we are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, there are also other serious issues that we need to look at,” he said, adding that he was particularly worried about supplies of condoms to developing countries.
Karex, which supplies condoms to many companies, as well as governments and for distribution by aid programs, had to close its three Malaysian factories at the start of the country’s lockdown, which is due to last until Tuesday next week.
The company has since been allowed to resume operations, but with only 50 percent of its usual workforce, and Goh wants permission to ramp up production.
The UN is also sounding the alarm, with its sexual and reproductive health agency saying that it can only get about 50 to 60 percent of its usual condom supplies due to virus-related disruptions.
“Border closings and other restrictive measures are affecting transportation and production in a number of countries and regions,” a UN Population Fund spokesperson said, adding that it was taking steps such as adding extra suppliers to support urgent needs.
The agency, which works with governments worldwide to support family planning, said that a key concern was being able to ship condoms to where they were needed quickly enough — and warned that the poorest and most vulnerable people would be hit hardest if stocks run low.
“A shortage of condoms, or any contraceptive, could lead to an increase in unintended pregnancies, with potentially devastating health and social consequences for adolescent girls, women, and their partners and families,” the spokesperson said.
There could also be an rise in unsafe abortions and an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections and HIV, the agency said.
Even as factory shutdowns and border closures throw the condom industry into chaos, demand appears to be increasing.
Goh said that Karex had seen growing demand as people worldwide are confined to their homes, while Indian media reported that condom sales had jumped 25 to 35 percent in the week after the country of 1.3 billion people announced a lockdown.
Despite the warnings about a potential shortage, major producers in China have resumed operations as authorities eased tough restrictions in a bid to halt the virus, which emerged in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province late last year.
HBM Protections, which makes more than 1 billion condoms per year, said production is back to normal levels and it is pushing ahead with earlier plans to triple its number of manufacturing lines by the end of the year.
Shanghai Mingbang Rubber Products said that it was ready to ramp up condom exports, which make up only about 10 percent of its output, if there is a global shortfall.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS