FDA monitors hand sanitizers on the market

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has begun monitoring all hand sanitizers on the markets in the Eastern Region to ensure that they were alcohol based and met the required quality and quantity.

According to Mr Samuel Kwakye, Eastern Regional Director of FDA, the exercise was to rid the market of sub-standard produced hand sanitizers that had flooded the market, to ensure the safety of all citizens in this trying times of the COVID-19.

He explained that the exercise was to encourage people who had taken advantage of the demand for hand sanitizers and were producing for the market to register their products with the FDA as well as to ensure that it contained the 70 per cent alcohol required.

He indicated that studies had shown that hand sanitizers with alcohol levels below 60 per cent were not effective in any way and expressed the hope that by the end of the exercise all sanitizers on the market would have met the 70 per cent alcohol content.

Meanwhile, Dr Hectoria Awekeya, a medical practitioner at the Eastern Regional Hospital, has urged the public not to buy any hand sanitizer with alcohol content less than the 70 per cent because it was not effective against the coronavirus.

She said it was the alcohol that had the potency to kill the virus on the hands coupled with the rubbing and therefore advised people to take the handwashing under running water very seriously.

Lately, all sorts of hand sanitizers have hit the market due to demand in the face of the coronavirus, some do not have any label indicating the ingredients, the few that have labels just show the names and telephone numbers of the manufacturers only.