- Title: Shortages and price spikes push Lagos residents to produce own sanitizers
- Date: 23rd March 2020
- Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (MARCH 20, 2020) (REUTERS) MOJI KUSANU SHOWING INGREDIENTS FOR DIY HAND SANITIZER VARIOUS OF MOJI MEASURING AND MIXING THE INGREDIENTS MOJI POURING THE SANITIZER INTO A BOTTLE MOJI SHAKING THE BOTTLE MOJI SHOWING A BOTTLE READING: "DIY SANITIZER" (SOUNDBITE) (English) LAGOS RESIDENT, MOJI KUSANU, SAYING: "I basically decided to make my own hand sanitizer because two weeks before the first confirmed case in Nigeria, I went to a supermarket and I got the really small bottle...the 50ml I think for 200 Naira (0.54$), two weeks later my brother went to the same supermarket and it was retailing at 1,700 Naira (4.64$). I have two children and a large household, there was no way I was going to buy 1,700 Naira for everybody." OGUN, NIGERIA (MARCH 19, 2020) (REUTERS) WORKER OPENING DRUM SANITIZER MIXING IN DRUM VARIOUS OF WORKERS BOTTLING SANITIZERS VARIOUS OF WORKERS LABELING BOTTLES OF SANITIZERS VARIOUS OF GENERAL MANAGER, CORMART NIGERIA LIMITED, JOHANNES FLOSBACH TALKING TO WORKERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER, CORMART NIGERIA LIMITED, JOHANNES FLOSBACH, SAYING: "Our scale has been about 100 cartons per month for small units…70ml, 100ml, and about 10 tonnes per month for commercial customers. However since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Nigeria, we have scaled up production to 1,000 cartons per day for the household sizes and up to almost 600 tonnes per month for commercial customers." VARIOUS CARTONS OF SANITIZERS VARIOUS OF WORKER SEALING CARTONS FORKLIFT MOVING CARTONS OF SANITIZER VARIOUS OF WORKERS SEALING 5 LITRE CANS OF SANITIZER (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER, CORMART NIGERIA LIMITED, JOHANNES FLOSBACH, SAYING: "We are always assuming the worst case scenario in our company, and what we see for example in Germany, the Chancellor said that she expects 60 to 70 percent of the population to be infected in Europe, and we don't see any reason why that should not be the case in Nigeria, so we are preparing for this kind of scenarios." CARTONS OF SANITIZERS READY TO BE MOVED INTO A DELIVERY TRUCK CARTON ON BOX READING (English): "CORYGIENE"
- Embargoed: 6th April 2020 18:01
- Keywords: Coronavirus Hand Sanitizer Nigeria Centre for Disease Control World Health Organization
- Location: LAGOS AND OGUN STATE, NIGERIA
- City: LAGOS AND OGUN STATE, NIGERIA
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA001C69VBDJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Moji Kusanu learned to make generic hand sanitizer after combining a recipe on the World Health Organization's website - which recommended mixing alcohol with aloe vera gel - with advice from medical journals which said glycerine should be added for its moisturizing effects.
Kusanu, a chef, said a 50 milliliter bottle of hand sanitizer skyrocketed after Nigeria's first coronavirus case was confirmed in Lagos in late February.
She says the cost was too great to pay for bottles to protect the five other people in her household.
"I basically decided to make my own hand sanitizer because two weeks before the first confirmed case in Nigeria, I went to a supermarket and I got the really small bottle...the 50ml I think for 200 Naira (0.54$), two weeks later my brother went to the same supermarket and it was retailing at 1,700 Naira (4.64$). I have two children and a large household, there was no way I was going to buy 1,700 Naira for everybody," she said.
In Nigeria's southwestern megacity of Lagos, many people lack access to clean water and cannot afford to buy the popular brands of hand sanitizer.
Prices of hand sanitizer went up by over 800 percent after the first case was announced.
The jump in price is linked to a scarcity of the product, making companies like Cormart Nigeria Limited, ramp up productions from 100 to 1,000 cartons a day.
Cormart is a leading specialty chemical manufacturing company that has been in Nigeria for over 40 years, with presence in Cameroon and Ghana, producing construction, beverage and consumer chemicals.
Johannes Flosbach is the Managing Director.
"Our scale has been about 100 cartons per month for small units…70ml, 100ml, and about 10 tonnes per month for commercial customers. However since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Nigeria, we have scaled up in production to 1,000 cartons per day for the household sizes and up to almost 600 tonnes per month for commercial customers," he said.
Africa's most populous country now has more than 30 confirmed cases.
The number of confirmed cases in Africa has been relatively small so far with about 1,400 cases and more than 40 deaths across a continent of 1.2 billion people, according to the World Health Organization. The global total comes to more than 305,000 cases, with over 13,000 deaths.
Health experts fear an outbreak in a continent beset by poor sanitation and already stretched health system is inevitable.
"We are always assuming the worst case scenario in our company, and what we see for example in Germany, the Chancellor said that she expects 60 -70 percent of the population to be infected in Europe, and we don't see any reason why that should not be the case in Nigeria, so we are preparing for this kind of scenarios," he said.
Nigeria confirmed its first fatality from coronavirus, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said in a tweet on Monday, the patient was a 67-year-old man who had returned from a medical procedure in the United Kingdom.
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