TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Thursday (Apr 16) that Japan will give out 50 million medical gloves to facilities facing shortages as the country grapples with the fallout of the war in the Middle East.
The emergency supply will come from Japan's stockpile of some 500 million medical gloves, according to local media.
"Starting in May, the government will release 50 million medical gloves from our pandemic stockpile to medical institutions facing shortages," Takaichi said in a special meeting on the situation in the Middle East.
The announcement comes as Japan, like the rest of the world, has faced severe shortages of oil-related products such as naphtha since the US-Israel war began on Feb 28. Naphtha can be used to make plastics, chemical fibers, rubber and paints.
Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transited before the war, has sent Tokyo officials scrambling to find ways to minimise the damage to the national economy.
