ISLAMABAD: Murree Brewery, a Pakistan-based manufacturer of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, has filed for a licence to manufacture and sell alcohol-based hand sanitisers.
The company wrote a letter to the Director General Excise and Taxation Punjab on March 28, 2020, requesting special permission for manufacturing and selling of ethanol-based hand sanitisers (having 70 per cent v/v ethanol).
The letter says that the said permission may be granted without any long formal requirements so as to be performed as a corporate social responsibility by the company.
Murree Brewery currently possesses L-1 and L-3 licenses that allow for the manufacturing and sale of intoxicating liquor with ethanol being the basic raw material for it.
It may also be noted that on March 30, 2020 the Punjab Excise Department had issued 16 licenses for hand sanitiser manufacturing, out of which only one company possesses a license prior to this. It is yet unconfirmed if Murree Brewery has been one of the allottees.
Additionally, while there is a widespread awareness that hand sanitisers are not effective in killing viruses, they do work in attacking and destroying the envelope protein that surrounds some viruses, including the coronavirus.
This protein is vital for the survival and multiplication of the virus, but the sanitising agent needs to contain at least 60pc alcohol in order to be effective here.
