Minister announces Croatian made respirator within next month

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ZAGREB, April 8 (Hina) – Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Wednesday a Croatian respirator would be made within the next month.

“In about a month we will have a respirator made in Croatia,” he told the press after an inner cabinet meeting.

The protective masks and respirators necessary primarily for medical staff, and then others, must have a special filtering fabric whose porosity is less than 0.125 micrometres, said Horvat. “The fabric is the key part. Currently, it can’t be made in Croatia and we will import it.”

He said 3C models of all the respirator components had been worked out with a dozen Croatian companies and that several production tools had been financed.

“I’m sure that by the end of next week we will have a completely developed Croatian respirator for which we need a fabric with certain filtering properties so that we can incorporate the filter into the body of the respirator,” Horvat said.

Croatia does not have an institution for the certification of such products, so this will be done in cooperation with Germany’s Dekra, he added. “This German institution is willing to meet us halfway and as soon as the first respirator is made, it will be tested there and I’m sure it will meet all the parametres.”

He said the respirator could also be a very interesting export product.