But mask manufacturing company, Amana Healthcare Products, which had faced problems in producing masks due to lack of global material supplies, can now run their production lines at full speed with the help of a Chinese company, HARVEST NON-WOVEN PRODUCTS (PTY) LTD.

Sun Xiaodong, CEO of the company, said on April 18th that they are trying to bring the transformation of the production line fully in line with the strict production standard of medical materials. The manufacturing plant is designed to adhere to the BRC standard of the food industry. They added a static masterbatch to their cloth and increased the static with 40,000 volts by using an electrostatic generator to enhance the material’s virus adsorption function.

JW Eggjink, Sales Manager of BBF Safety Group, said import tariffs can be directly exempted through local purchases and is also more convenient. “In the current mask shortage situation, they (HARVEST NON-WOVEN PRODUCTS (PTY) LTD) did not raise the price of raw material.”

Marko, the Production Supervisor of HARVEST NON-WOVEN PRODUCTS (PTY) LTD, has been working for the company since September, 2018. He said many local employees refused to wear masks when the epidemic started, because they believed that only patients wear them. With the company's persistent training, everyone has changed their minds. "The company really did its best to protect employees’ families."