Iker Elizburu, director of the Wolfratex company: “The mask is a product that is here to stay”

Starting next Wednesday, the mask will no longer be mandatory in interior spaces of Hego Euskal Herria; with exceptions such as health centers, social health centers and public transport.

The new regulations will be approved on Tuesday, and will come into force the following day.

Although at the beginning of the pandemic the masks came from China, they soon began to manufacture them in-house wolfratex from Bergara. Its director has highlighted the company’s capacity for autonomy in the program Amarauna from Euskadi Irratia.

Iker Elizabethdirector of the company, has expressed that the manufacturing capacity they have shown in the face of a hypothetical pandemic in the future is “as interesting as it is important”.

Faced with such a situation, he believes it is essential to be “protected”, so “we have to stay here”. Thus, he has opted for a local industry, “self-sufficient and independent”.

Over the last two years, the Larramendi industrial estate company has produced nearly 90 million units, manufacturing more than 200 masks per minute.

Elizburu explains that, “at the beginning, we worked non-stop with five relays, for 365 days”. Now, it is enough for them to work one or two shifts: “in the end, we had to achieve flexibility in production.”

In a context in which the use of the mask could decrease considerably, he affirms that it will not disappear overnight, since “people have acquired a security point with the mask, for example against a cold or flu “.

For all these reasons, the director of Wolfratex believes that it is a product that “has come to stay” and that we will continue to find “on the shelves of supermarkets and pharmacies”.

Thus, it ensures that the production of masks will guarantee them work, which will adapt to the situation at all times.