We will soon flood the markets with hand sanitizers – Pharmaceutical Chamber
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Chamber, Anthony Ameka, has hinted that hand sanitisers will flood the markets in the next two weeks as the pharmaceutical industry increases production.
He said production figures dipped as demand increased because pharmaceutical companies ran out of containers for packaging.
“We are going to flood the market soon with sanitisers, the problem is that some of the companies were having their raw materials to produce, but they were not having packaging materials,” he said.
A mad rush for hand sanitisers hit many parts of Ghana after the announcement of six confirmed coronavirus cases.
Panic buyers attacked shops and pharmacies, emptying shelves, compelling the price of the most-on-demand anti-coronavirus product to shoot up astronomically.
Traders now sell the 29 ml bottled sanitizers, which previously sold at 2 cedis, for 15 cedis.
Mad rush for hand sanitizers in Accra amid coronavirus outbreak
Allaying the fears of Ghanaians, Mr Ameka in an interview with theghanareport.com said the industry was working, in consultation with the various regional medical stores, to produce the hand sanitisers in barrels and supply them to hospitals for repackaging for individual use.
“So now we are looking at three approaches: To supply the alcohols base, but we will distil it, some are 99.60%, but we have to distil it to 70%; We can also supply in barrels to Regional Medical Stores, to hospitals and others, and they will repackage it for individuals.”
“In addition to that, the University of Ghana, Cape Coast University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital are all manufacturing sanitisers,” he said.