Bengaluru tops in making protective overalls for corona warriors

 India's tech city Bengaluru emerged at the top in the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the safety of healthcare professionals treating coronavirus patients, an official said on Monday.

"Bengaluru leads other cities in making PPEs or overalls for healthcare warriors across the country, followed by Chennai and Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, Phagwara and Ludhiana in Punjab, Gurugram and Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR)," said the official in a statement here.

Ever since the virus broke out and turned into a pandemic in mid-March, PPE makers have ramped up production to roll out about one lakh overalls daily.

"About a million (10 lakh) overalls have been produced till date to meet the growing demand for the protection of doctors, nurses, paramedics and others tracing, testing and treating thousands of patients in state-run and private hospitals across the country," said Karnataka's health official here.

The Centre is also working with state governments, industry bodies and makers to streamline the supply chain, remove bottlenecks and maintain a steady supply of the equipment to Covid warriors.

"Bengaluru accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the country's PPE production. As a specialised protective suit for healthcare warriors, the central health ministry prescribed checks and compliances to ensure they protect the warriors," said the official.

The ministry has authorised HLL Lifecare to procure overalls for all Covid hospitals and healthcare organisations across the country.

The overalls are produced as prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

State-run and private factories at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Ahmedabad and Vadodara in Gujarat, Kusumnagar and Bhiwandi in Maharashtra, Dungarpur in Rajasthan and Kolkata in West Bengal are also producing the overalls.

"Four laboratories across the country with synthetic blood penetration resistance test facilities and approvals are conducting tests and certification for body overalls," noted the statement.

The labs are of South India Textiles Research Association at Coimbatore, Defence Research and Development Establishment at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Ordnance Factory Board (Heavy Vehicles Factory) at Avadi near Chennai in Tamil Nadu and small arms factory at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

For each such test conducted on overalls, a unique certification code is generated to record the type of fabric, garment, testing date and testing standard.

"The lab will also accept the sample for testing only on an affidavit to ensure the overall quality of the overalls is maintained," added the statement. IANS