Hartalega confirms 35 workers test positive for Covid-19

KUALA LUMPUR: Hartalega Holdings Bhd has confirmed that 35 of its employees tested positive for Covid-19, 20 of them are at the 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 were currently under 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 that 0.5% of annual output,” it said.

Furthermore, Hartalega said a thorough disinfection of all areas where the affected individuals were present had also been carried out by a third-party professional provider.

The group said Covid-19 tests were carried out on a total of 8,772 personnel, including outsourced vendors such as security personnel and canteen operators on Dec 7 and were completed on Dec 10, in line with the National Security Council’s directive for all foreign workers to undergo testing.

CEO 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 would 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