To prevent the propagation of Covid-19, Kersia encourages you to be vigilant and apply the good practice rules for detergency and disinfection of your equipment, surfaces, floors and hands.
Carry out good practices and use the right products!
Letter from our President, Sébastien Bossard, about COVID-19
Dear All,
Like you and a lot of citizens around the world, we are all living an exceptional and unprecedented situation. Like you, we are doing our best to adapt to this unique and rapidly changing environment. Kersia’s hygiene and disinfectant solutions are vital in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic now affecting the entire population throughout the world. This is why, in all countries, Kersia has been designated as one of the companies “essential to the well-being of the nation”. Every day we are mobilized to stay true to our mission: “Inventing a food safe world”. Additionally, we supply the healthcare sector, providing differentiated solutions that contribute to the safety of medical workers and patients.
Today, I want to give you a quick summary of the measures taken on 3 priority fronts to ensure the continuation of our mission: 1) take care of people, 2) meet the extraordinary demand for our solutions, 3) answer questions and provide a complete information.
A Crisis Management Team (CMT) has been set up to constantly assess the situation in our subsidiaries and coordinate all actions in these 3 areas:
Take care of people: Ensuring the well-being of all the women and men in our group and preventing human-to-human transmission of the virus is our priority. Very early on, we have cancelled international trips, delayed visits of 3rd parties and started to deploy home-office solutions where and whenever possible.
Produce, allocate, deliver: demand for some key products (such as disinfectant based on alcohol) has exploded, with up to 30 times the standard demand during some weeks in March. Many Kersia facilities have increased their production with extra shifts, longer hours, the hiring of temporary workers…. Our teams are sparing no effort to solve tensions in our supply chain and in our delivery schedules, when confronted with suppliers’ shortages, bottlenecks and reinforced customs controls. I am very grateful to Kersia employees for their efforts, to all our customers for their trust and to all our partners for their support.
Respond to questions: Sharing and Transparency are 2 of our 4 values. We are committed to be fully transparent regarding the decisions of the Group, and to communicate as frequently as possible our latest information, guidelines and best practices. You will find many answers on https://www.kersia-group.com/newsroom, with our periodic Covid-19 Situation Reports. Contact Points are also listed country by country (see report dated March 18). Hand hygiene being the first bulwark against the propagation of the virus, we have also listed recommended disinfectants solutions for different surfaces and applications. Good practice rules are also graphically described and communicated to all our partners.
In this unprecedented times for our industry, I measure every day how our empowerment’s DNA is widely shared throughout the Group, for more pragmatism and efficiency, but also how crucial our mission is to people’s life. All Kersia women and men are doing their best to serve the planet.
Please do take care of yourself and of your loved ones.
Sébastien Bossard
CEO
Covid-19 Situation report #3
Good Practices
1. Recommandation all along the food chain
2. Prepare
1. Wet hands and forearms
2. Take a dose of soap
3. Rub hands for 30 seconds making the rubbing movements shown below:
A- Palm to palm
B- Palm on back of the hand and vice versa
C- Fingers interlaced
D- Backs of the fingers
E- Around the thumbs
F- Fingertips in the palm (brush the nails)
G- Wrists
4. Rinse and dry hands with a disposable towel
5. Take a dose of hand sanitiser
6. Repeat the protocol, rubbing hands for the recommanded time for a virucidal action
7. Do not rinse
A high cleaning frequency is key to the safety of surfaces WITH CONTINUAL human skin contacts.
3. Act
Kersia SOLUTIONS
Efficient against COVID-19
Questions and Answers on Covid-19 by Kersia experts
In this webinar we will outline the Covid -19 pandemic and the specificity of this new coronavirus. We will cover the strategy to reduce the spread of the virus in order to protect populations and the solutions / resources which are available to meet the demands of our customers who must maintain their activity in this difficult period.
The 7-step hand cleaning protocol ensures a satisfactory level of hygiene. However, it might not remove the virus if it is on your hands. The full application of cleaning and disinfection provides better protection if you were at risk from exposure to the virus.
As explained in the presentation, SARS-COV-2 is an enveloped virus which is easier to eliminate than an unenveloped virus (also called a naked virus). All the disinfectants listed by KERSIA are effective in combating this virus because they have been tested either on similar Coronavirus viruses or on non-enveloped viruses which are more difficult to eliminate than a enveloped virus such as SARS-Cov-2.
The family of coronaviruses has been known since the 60s but this family is very large and through mutation new strains emerge. To date, no treatment exists for SARS-COV-2.
The research has resumed where it left off after the 2003 SARS pandemic. Today in Europe, there are 13 clinical trials underway with 7 treatments under study.
The information we have to date on this subject is not precise. What we do know is that the virus has spread to many countries, even countries with high temperatures, so the virus has a certain resistance to temperature.
Regarding the survival of the virus in air, we can assume that it only survives for a few moments because air is not, in principle, a vector of transmission. However, to date, we have no precise scientific analysis on this subject.
Any cleaning lotion can be used to wash your hands so long as the 7-Step hand cleaning protocol is followed.
The anti-microbial lotion or disinfectant are there to increase the effect and to eliminate the virus, especially if you have been in a high- risk situation or potential contact with the virus.
The virus can survive on surfaces, this we know from various studies. However to date we do not know, whether the virus when present on the surface continues to be infectious. Therefore it is not known today whether the virus can infect an individual who touches a contaminated surface.
The use of soap allows an adequate level of hand hygiene as long as the 7-step hand cleaning protocol is respected. The use of the hydroalcoholic solution is recommended when one has been in a risk situation vis-à-vis the virus.