MSA gets $4M federal contract
CRANBERRY TWP — Cranberry-based MSA received a $4 million federal contract to produce respirators for the nation's personal protective equipment stockpile.
The company announced Thursday it received the contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to manufacture elastomeric air-purifying respirators, or APRs, which can be disinfected and re-used, for the Strategic National Stockpile.
Advantage 290 Air-Purifying Respirators, the type of respirator purchased by HHS, are a relatively new creation by MSA Safety Inc., which said it worked closely with health care professionals to improve comfort and protection for wearers.
MSA boasted that its Advantage 290 APRs protect both wearers and those around them from contaminants. Typically, the company said, industrial respirators include an exhaust valve to release exhaled air. These devices, however, filter both inhaled and exhaled air, eliminating the need for an exhaust valve.
Last year, those models became the first half-mask elastomeric respirator with inhaled and exhaled filtration to receive approval from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency researching and recommending means to prevent work-related injury and illness.
Given the events of the past nearly two years, MSA specifically pointed to COVID-19 as an example of how the respirator could benefit workers. By excluding the exhaust valve, the company said, the new respirator helps mitigate the potential for COVID-19 spread by protecting both the health care provider from infectious patients and the patient from a potentially infectious provider.
In other words, MSA said, the respirator protects both the wearer and those around the wearer.
The Strategic National Stockpile is a stopgap for when necessary materials are not immediately available or sufficient, and is part of the federal government's medical response infrastructure. It can supplement efforts by states, tribal nations, territories and metropolitan areas during public health emergencies, and includes supplies, medicines and devices for lifesaving care.
The respirators will be produced at the company's Jacksonville, N.C., manufacturing facility, which is owned by subsidiary MSA LLC.
