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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
Africa University has received a $350 000 grant to scale up production of hand sanitisers and personal protective equipment to help in the fight against Covid-19. The university is targeting the production of 1 000 units of hand sanitisers per week, which will be distributed in retail shops as well as in hospitals and other institutions.

Africa University public affairs director, Mr Stephen Chikozho said the grant had come from Old Mutual.

“The grant from Old Mutual is meant to capacitate us to up-scale production of hand sanitisers.

“Previously, we have been focusing on the research, chemical testing and prototypes for the hand sanitiser and our initial production was at 50 units per day,” he said.

He said the university had procured 2 000 litres of ethanol, which will be used to push production to 1 000 units.

“We have different volumes starting from 50ml, 100ml, 500ml and one litre. For the initial launch we are looking at starting with 1 000 units and we will produce more as we go.

“Our marketing strategy has been structured in such a way that we will supply our smaller quantities to supermarkets and pharmacies while the larger quantities will be targeted at hospitals and other institutions that consume such products in large volumes,” said Mr Chikozho.

He said Africa University would donate some of the products to one health institution in the province as part of its corporate social responsibility.