Nigeria’s pharmaceutical manufacturing giant, May & Baker Nigeria Plc has made donations of hand sanitizers to various institutions across the country including some Police commands in Lagos and Ogun states, the Nigerian Prisons and several other stakeholders.
The donations were made on behalf of the company by Eugene Olewuenyi, Communications Consultant accompanied by Binta Yusuf, Personal Assistant to the Managing Director/ CEO. Olewuenyi said the donation is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility and one of the company’s ways to intervene against the Corona virus pandemic.
While receiving the hand sanitizers at the Nigerian Correctional Service, Deputy Controller of Prisons in charge of the Kirikiri Custodian Centre, Rev. BenRabbi Freedman said the donation by May & Baker is unique because it touches directly on a highly vulnerable segment of the society . He thanked May & Baker for the donation of cartons of the product and assured that the product will reach those for whom it was intended.
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May & Baker is a leading local manufacturer of Hand Sanitizers in Nigeria with the brand name “Smartans”.
In a separate statement, the Managing Director /CEO of May & Baker, Nnamdi Okafor said that the company re- activated its’ hand sanitizer production line within 72 hours of announcement of the COVID -19 index case in Nigeria.
He stated that the company’s major goal was to join in the battle against this invisible enemy called COVID-19 with a first objective of forcing down the criminally inflated pricing of hand sanitizers to a point where most Nigerians can afford them.
He further stated that it was critical that the pandemic is contained in Nigeria before it goes out of control considering the poor state of our healthcare facilities and opined that good personal hygiene is central to this strategy. This he said informed the company’s decision to donate this product direct to certain institutions that are central to this battle and also some vulnerable groups like the police and prisons/prisoners.
He said the company has also taken steps to ensure that “our stakeholders such as staff, visitors and customers have the product for their personal and family hygiene He said the company took steps to ensure compliance with World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guidelines on personal hygiene including hand washing, use of hand sanitizers and social distancing among all staff and visitors to its premises.
In another unique contribution to the fight against
COVID – 19, the company has mass produced chloroquine tablets for clinical trials following the indication that chloroquine could be useful for the management of the Coronavirus disease.
At the wake of the spread of the disease in Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, ( NAFDAC) contacted May & Baker to mass produce emergency stock of chloroquine for possible clinical trials.
Okafor said the company has already produced large stock of chloroquine in response to the NAFDAC request. This has already been made available to some health institutions in Nigeria and countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Chloroquine has long been used for the treatment of malaria. It was a flagship product of May & Baker until some years back when the federal government stopped the use of the drug in treatment of malaria in Nigeria.
