Some employees at an area factory say moldy shoes from China are making them sick.

A health and safety official at Cove Shoes in Martinsburg confirmed a handful of people have complained of a sore throat and one woman had an allergic reaction.

Ralph Lewis says the shipment somehow got wet on the way over from China, and mold grew on the shoes. Cove Shoes makes almost everything in house, but they do import some shoes.

Employees started cleaning the mold off the shoes, and then a few of them started complaining of sore throats. One woman actually had an allergic reaction and was taken to the hospital. She was treated and actually returned to work that day.

Management got a call from OSHA Tuesday that someone had filed an informal complaint about the mold.

Lewis says employees are no longer handling the moldy shoes.  He says the mold on the shoes is actually a pretty common variety. He says it's not infectious and it can be found just about anywhere.

He says they're looking into finding a different way to clean the shoes so employees wouldn't be exposed to the mold. or they could sub-contract the work out to a company that specializes in this kind of thing.

He also said they would have done that ordinarily but those companies are backed up. There have been a lot of mold cases linked to the rainy summer in China.

Lewis says the health of the employees is the most important thing so they're going to be more careful with their incoming shipments in the future.

Some employees at an area factory say moldy shoes from China are making them sick.

A health and safety official at Cove Shoes in Martinsburg confirmed a handful of people have complained of a sore throat and one woman had an allergic reaction.

Ralph Lewis says the shipment somehow got wet on the way over from China, and mold grew on the shoes. Cove Shoes makes almost everything in house, but they do import some shoes.

Employees started cleaning the mold off the shoes, and then a few of them started complaining of sore throats. One woman actually had an allergic reaction and was taken to the hospital. She was treated and actually returned to work that day.

Management got a call from OSHA Tuesday that someone had filed an informal complaint about the mold.

Lewis says employees are no longer handling the moldy shoes.  He says the mold on the shoes is actually a pretty common variety. He says it's not infectious and it can be found just about anywhere.

He says they're looking into finding a different way to clean the shoes so employees wouldn't be exposed to the mold. or they could sub-contract the work out to a company that specializes in this kind of thing.

He also said they would have done that ordinarily but those companies are backed up. There have been a lot of mold cases linked to the rainy summer in China.

Lewis says the health of the employees is the most important thing so they're going to be more careful with their incoming shipments in the future.