In April, Ansell’s Sales and Marketing team attended the 23rd National Perioperative Nursing Conferences held at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Organized by the Perioperative Special Interest Group of the Malaysian Nurses Association, in conjunction with The Asian Perioperative Nurses Association (ASIORNA), this national event gathered operating room nurses and surgical specialists from all the states to network and learn the latest advances on perioperative topics.

The event spanned two days with invited speakers from Asia Pacific region sharing their best practices in Operating Room (OR) Management, selected surgery procedures, and infection control topics.

This year, Anna Lobanova, Marketing Director EMEA & APAC Emerging Markets gave a talk on allergy protection during the industry satellite session. The target message in this symposium was to build awareness on latex allergies among OR nurses and other healthcare professionals.

In the 40-minute session, Anna shared allergy causes, routes of exposure, powdered gloves and statistics on the prevalence of latex allergies across Asia based on the market studies conducted by Ansell in India, China and Russia. The results show that more than fifty percent of healthcare professionals in these countries reports some forms of skin irritation. Latex allergy is a rising issue that OR professionals need to be more aware of and learn how to implement solutions to protect their hands and prevent development of new sensitization.

Anna also highlighted the importance of implementing a latex safe environment for patient safety, patient allergy screening protocol, and the application of latex-free products in the OR to protect both latex sensitized patients and healthcare staff.

Ansell booth was designed to shout-out on “Know the Difference,” our non-latex campaign, along with a special focus on Ansell technology, including Sensoprene™, Ultra-thin Neoprene Technology and highlight on two of Ansell’s non-latex products, GAMMEX® Non-Latex and GAMMEX® Non-Latex Sensitive surgical gloves. We had taken this opportunity to showcase Ansell’s full range of surgical gloves and Sandel® Safety Solutions.

The event was a great platform for Ansell to reach out to OR professionals and listen to our customers. With increasing concerns of glove-related allergic reactions among healthcare professionals and patients, it gave us the opportunity to exchange perspectives and how Ansell can come into place to provide solutions for the OR team in overcoming allergy in surgeries.