• Direct. Last minute on the coronavirus

  • Politics. The 10 government rectifications on masks

Luis Gil

is secretary general of the

Association of Individual Protection Equipment Companies

(ASEPAL), the employer's association that encompasses more than 90 national companies dedicated to making gloves, masks and protective clothing.

The sector has experienced a complex year: the elimination of the

CE marking

, a decision taken at the European level to be able to face the high demand for the product during the pandemic, favored the entry of material that has not passed sufficient security filters.

Ad

Furthermore, they criticize that the Government did not count on them at the time of

buy material

from

China

, which could have influenced which part of the acquisition was defective.

With the arrival of 2021, the obligation to present the CE marking on all products that are marketed returns, but the employers have no news that the Government is going to coordinate with the sector to control the quality of the product.

The year ends when we all found out what PPE was.

Unfortunately, what PPE was known to have been, and not because of the best of circumstances.

Personal protective equipment came to the fore as a fundamental element when it comes to coping with the pandemic, especially in that first barrier that has been the health workers.

We value this role that PPE has taken on because it has allowed us to become aware of the importance of protection when we face risks.

At the beginning, referring to the

masks

, protective clothing or gloves, the market was not prepared to accommodate the high demand.

From that moment on, the sector was put at the service of the administrations, especially the Ministry of Health and Industry, although it is true that they have never had the sector when it comes to advice in relation to the purchase of material .

A material that was partly defective.

With the advice of the sector could have been avoided?

The information we have about these purchases is that they were made, on the one hand, urgently, which we understand, but through companies that were unrelated to this type of product.

Having here a mature sector, with relevant companies and in constant collaboration with the Ministry, which have not taken the sector into account when making those purchases, caught our attention.

Have the Spanish companies been up to the supply demanded?

They have done all they can.

We think they have been up to the task, within the product that was available.

The shortage problems were caused by circumstances outside the companies themselves, such as the fact that manufacturing was decentralized and outside of Spain, which made the acquisition very difficult.

Another important decision was the removal of the CE marking.

A wise decision?

It was approached at a time when we understood that the shortage was quite important, and it was necessary to favor the arrival of the material.

While it is true, sufficient market surveillance actions have not been established to investigate products that do not meet these conditions.

The problem is that many opportunistic companies took advantage of the circumstances to introduce products without considering that the product is safe.

At this time we have not seen that these actions have increased in a significant way, because at first they should have been established at borders, but the body that is in charge of this, for example, does not have the masks within its scope competence.

We believe that this is one of the issues that should be changed in market surveillance.

In turn, the product that has been introduced under these conditions was very focused on protection against

Covid-19

, but the problem we are detecting is that the product that is introduced against Covid-19 is jumping to industrial channels and professionals from other sectors.

Self-filtering masks are used mostly in industry, more than in healthcare, but we are seeing how this product, which entered under these conditions, has jumped.

It presents us with certain doubts that security is adequate.

We think that the health of workers, especially the industrial channel, can be compromised.

On January 1, the removal of the CE marking will end.

Will it be easy to return to this system?

We return to the situation prior to the pandemic: there can be no PPE product without having the CE marking.

Fortunately, that guarantees that the product that we are going to find, both citizens and professionals, is safe.

However, we are seeing that many companies invested large amounts of money in bringing this type of products, now we are seeing offers in which they practically give away, for example, KN95 masks without the CE marking.

We are concerned that, although it is required for its commercialization, there is still a lot of mask that does not meet the health requirements.

The measure is against the commercialization of the product, not against its use.

If you have bought them and have them at home, you can continue using them.

The problem is that there has been a high percentage of products that did not meet the filtration requirements that they claimed to meet.

Do you have the government's commitment for this new control?

We do not know in itself.

They are aware and trust that the market is self-regulating and that it ends up finding only safe products, but we are not aware of any coordinated action currently.

It is one of the issues that we are going to continue working with so as not to waste time.

The sooner we get down to it, the sooner we can guarantee that the product is safe.

In relation to the Government, we know that there had been talk of a strategic reserve for this type of product, of which we have not heard much again.

They have told us that they are working on having a strategic reserve of production capacity, that is, providing the industry with the appropriate mechanisms so that in the case of high supply needs there is a production capacity that can be activated to manufacture said production .

To continue reading for free

Sign inSign up

Or

subscribe to Premium

and you will have access to all the web content of El Mundo

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more