Perhaps the most sought items today are hand sanitisers and alcohol-based hand rubs, once rarely used, as people scramble to protect themselves from the lethal coronavirus.

And the situation has gotten so dire in Bangladesh that one has to knock counter after counter of convenience stores and pharmacies to get either of them.

"It appears that I will have to check pharmacies in other areas," said Farhad Alam, an undergraduate student of computer science of Bangladesh University, after failing to secure even one hand sanitiser after calling into ten pharmacies on the Satmasjid Road, told bdnews24.com

At Jafrabad, half a kilometre away from where Alam was looking for the hand sanitiser, another man in his 20s wore a frantic look: he was returning home empty-handed after checking out all five pharmacies in his neighbourhood for the no-rinse hand wash.

After official disclosure of detection of coronavirus in Bangladesh on March 8, the demand for the items have spiralled out of control for even the manufacturers and importers of the items.

Most health officials and disease specialists say one of the best preventive measures against the coronavirus or any other outbreak is frequent washing of hands, using soap and water to scrub fronts, backs and between fingers for at least 20 seconds.

If soap and water are not available, health professionals say, then hand sanitiser can be used, as long as it contains at least 60 per cent alcohol and the gel is squirted onto the hands and rubbed briskly all over them for about 20 seconds.

Regardless, people can't stop seeking out for hand sanitisers.

Even after ramping up production and distribution hand sanitisers are going out of stock as soon as the stores are putting them out on the shelves, said Jesmin Zaman, head of marketing of Square Toiletries, which sells 'Sepnil' brand hand sanitisers.

Square is now making 10 tonnes of hand sanitisers daily and supplying to the market without any delays.

A month ago, Square could sell at the most one tonnes of hand sanitisers.

"Even in January, five to 10 lakh people in Bangladesh were aware of hand sanitisers at best."

But suddenly, millions of people were looking for the item.

"We have the machinery. We are increasing our production capacity with as much raw materials and packaging materials we are getting," Zaman said.

The correspondent got hand sanitisers in 7 out of the 17 establishments visited in Dhamnondi. And they were mostly in the supermarket chains.

And save for one, the brands that were found available were less known even a week ago. Some have started making hand sanitisers recently, while some firms are trying to make some good margins from the newfound business opportunity for the hygiene item.

Yet fast imports are not possible as flights to and from import destinations such as China have become infrequent.

"My supplier informed that he would be unable to take any responsibility in case of flight delays," said Abdul Mannan, who was trying to buy some hand sanitisers from China. He runs a store in the port city of Chattogram.

He said imports by sea is time-consuming and businesses are not sure that the heightened demand would persist once the supply arrives.

But imports have increased recently, he said.