ChemVsCOVID: Petronas – washing our hands of the virus
With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world by storm, daily news may make the situation seem bleak. The top-of-mind priority for everyone right now is staying safe at home and doing our part in maintaining the social distancing to flatten the curve while continuously maintaining good hygiene.
Malaysian energy company PETRONAS has been proactive in doing its part to tackle the virus, from working with its partners in Formula 1 to develop respirators, to embracing home working and donating goods and materials to help with manufacture of PPE or other essential items.
Helping those on the front line has been a core focus for the company, which has responded to calls from its community for help when required
Nurida Mohd Yusop, Head of the Centralised Lab at PETRONAS Research, said turning their attention to how they can help as chemists was among the most effective things they could do quickly. She said: “Being scientists, we started discussing about formulating medical grade hand sanitiser to be distributed internally to our PETRONAS front liners, especially when we have all the basic ingredients ready at our research facilities.
“Much to our delight, our leader had a similar thought. He encouraged us to give back and contribute to combating COVID-19. In response to the current shortage of sanitisers in Malaysia, we immediately formed a team to get things going at a fast pace, and we got in touch with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) to obtain relevant approval for us to produce the hand sanitiser.”
So committed was the team to responding to this need, that the sanitiser was produced very rapidly, and was produced to such a standard that it would be particularly effective in slowing the spread of the virus.
Nurida continued: “With great teamwork, the team worked relentlessly in-house to produce the hand sanitiser for our front liners. The hand sanitiser was carefully formulated to ensure the alcohol content is high enough for effectiveness, and as a matter of fact, our product has higher alcohol content than most of the commercially available hand sanitisers to ensure an effective disinfectant effect while meeting the WHO requirements.”
The team produced 200 litres of the ethanol-based hand sanitiser gel, resulting in 2,000 units of 100ml bottles for fast distribution to where it was needed most.
The hand sanitisers were also distributed to PETRONAS’ own front liners as well as to PETRONAS filling stations.
Nurida concluded: “We are deeply honoured by everyone’s contribution in working as a team to make it a success. The crisis has indeed generated some fantastic, positive act of kindness, ingenuity and innovation.
“We hope our little effort will make a difference in the fight against COVID-19, hopefully the atmosphere will soon be normal and safe for us all.”
