Haitian textile factories shift to facemasks

A private company in Haiti has begun producing facemasks for the government, exchanging the production for permission to re-open its doors while helping to fulfill a promise made by President Jovenel Moise to make masks available for the general public.

The factory is one of 8 Korean-owned companies on the island that provide almost half a billion US dollars in textile exports annually and employ thousands of people.

Companies had pressed the Moise administration to be allowed to operate in spite of shutdown orders to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and recently the government agreed to let the factories run on reduced and staggered shifts.

Under this agreement, the South Korean textile company BMI is producing 10,000 masks a week for free distribution via government programs, while also producing gowns and other protective gear for both the government and commercial medical establishments for profit.

Seven other Korean textile companies will also start operations to produce protective gear for distribution in the country.

A third of the normal 1500 factory workers in BMI are allowed to work on any given shift, and the company is rotating the allowed workers so that all employees can earn at least one week's salary a month during the crisis.

Haiti's health care system is a patchwork of underfunded government-run institutions and private hospitals which are economically out of reach of most of the country's 11 million people.

Experts say the country is ill prepared for a pandemic of any kind, much less a highly contagious virus like the coronavirus, and has only a handful of operational ventilators available for use in emergencies.

A cholera epidemic in 2010 infected almost 1 million people and killed close to 10,000 before being controlled after a massive effort by international health organizations.

With the entire world struggling with the pandemic, experts say it's not likely Haiti will receive such aid again if a large-scale outbreak occurs in its poor and overcrowded cities.

The Haitian government has confirmed 57 COVID-19 cases and 3 deaths, but health authorities fear the contagion could be much more widespread since there is little testing is being done.

Haiti has closed its borders and stopped all international travel in a bid to slow down the spread of the virus, but some experts believe the virus is already spreading around the island.

The textile companies will have to ramp up production of protective gear to meet what health experts and government officials say will be an increasingly serious epidemic, and it will be months before millions of face masks can be made available to a vulnerable population.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.