Saved by the gel

HAVE you been forgetting to squirt? Is your anti-bacterial hand gel rolling about in the bottom of your handbag, its sell-by date well expired? Anti-bacterial hand sanitisers claim to kill 99.9% of germs but the Irish populace seems just a tad switched off.

When swine flu struck in 2009 and the Department of Health’s chief medical officer warned one-in-four of us could catch it, pharmacists had a hard time keeping these products on their shelves. Now very few people are buying it,” says Kerry-based pharmacist Jack Shanahan.

Andrew Maher, MD of Co Meath-based Pharmaher Healthcare, tells a similar story. His company was the first pharmacy distributor to launch a hand sanitiser into Irish retail pharmacies back in 2004. By the time Swine Flu hit, Pharmaher’s non-alcohol hand sanitising spray — active ingredient is benzethonium chloride — was well placed to take the lion’s share of the market.