KUALA LUMPUR – Hartalega Holdings Bhd has confirmed that 35 of its employees have tested positive for Covid-19, 20 of them from its Bestari Jaya operations and 15 at the Next Generation Integrated Glove Manufacturing Complex (NGC) in Sepang.
In a statement today, it said the affected employees are currently receiving medical care at a government healthcare facility, while all primary contacts over the past 14 days have been identified and placed under quarantine and will undergo subsequent testing before being permitted to return to work.
“As a result, some production lines have temporarily shut down, with estimated capacity loss to be less than 0.5% of annual output,” it said.
Furthermore, Hartalega said a thorough disinfection of all areas where the affected individuals were present has also been carried out by a third-party professional provider.
The group said Covid-19 tests were carried out on 8,772 personnel, including outsourced vendors, such as security personnel and canteen operators, on December 7 and were completed on December 10, in line with the National Security Council’s directive for all foreign workers to undergo testing.
Chief executive officer Kuan Mun Leong said the stringent measures have enabled the group to record a significantly low positive rate of only 0.4% of all its employees.
“While it is unfortunate that we have positive cases among our employees, we are encouraged that good living conditions and high standards of our workers’ accommodation, which surpass required standards, have allowed us to contain the number of cases,” he said.
He added that the group will continue to review and improve their Covid-19 prevention measures and is looking into implementing a periodical Antigen Rapid Test Kits testing for all employees moving forward. – Bernama, December 14, 2020
