By Ian McConnell
SCOTTISH outdoor clothing specialist Keela has amid the coronavirus pandemic launched an “anti-viral” range which it is hailing as an innovation in its market-place.
The Glenrothes-based company has partnered with Swedish textile technologist Polygiene to produce the ViralOff outdoor clothing range.
Keela said the active ingredient in Keela ViralOff reduces viruses on garments by 99 per cent over a two-hour period.
It added: “The Keela ViralOff collection features garments that are protected against coronavirus and other viruses such as influenza, bird flu, norovirus, and SARS.”
READ MORE: Opinion: Ian McConnell: How on earth does overseas travel take off amid pandemic?
The range includes trousers, long-sleeve tops and neck gaiters for men and women.
The ViralOff collection is produced in Keela’s Sri Lanka factory.
Keela’s Glenrothes factory is currently making gowns for the National Health Service.
A spokeswoman for Keela said the company had recently taken on 50 new staff and expanded its facilities at Southfield in Glenrothes by 10,000 sq ft to allow for social-distancing measures.
READ MORE: Opinion: Ian McConnell: Moderate Tory voices absent as UK Brexit crusade at full tilt
Keela sales director Sam Fernando said: “As lockdown measures continue to ease across the country, it [is] important to get back into the outdoors safely. When it came to developing this range, Polygiene ViralOff was an obvious choice. With 16 years’ experience in this field and their work dating back to the 2004 SARS outbreak, they are true experts in this area.”
She added: “During the design phase of the collection, it became clear that we wanted to make products that are not only suitable for the current Covid-19 pandemic, but ones that are a longer-term solution to enhance hygiene.”
Family-owned Keela also flagged protection offered by the new range, with its “self-sanitising fabric”, against bacteria.
Keela and its sister company, Ardmel, have a combined annual turnover of £8 million. The companies employ about 100 people in the UK.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel