Xerox to Manufacture Sanitizer for Healthcare Workers

Xerox to Manufacture Sanitizer for Frontline Healthcare Workers in North America

Xerox Holdings Corporation (Xerox) is leveraging its manufacturing capabilities and in-house materials expertise to produce approximately 140,000 gallons (529,957.7 litres) of hand sanitizer by June 2020, an initiative focused on helping to save lives during the current global health crisis.

First deliveries are expected by the end of April,  just a few weeks from concept to market. Xerox will produce the sanitizer at its facilities in Toronto and near Rochester, N.Y., distributing the product to resellers, who are approved vendors, to frontline healthcare organizations.

“This is a time for every company, every person, to look at what they can do to help society,” said John Visentin, vice chairman and chief executive of Xerox. “Essentials like hand sanitizer will continue to be in high demand. The team moved fast, figured out how to get over the hurdles and are starting to deliver the product – all in under a month.”

This initiative follows Xerox’s announcement earlier this month that it is partnering with Vortran Medical Technology to speed and scale production of the GO2Vent ventilator and related Airway Pressure Monitor (APM-Plus) for hospitals and emergency response units fighting the battle against COVID-19.

Not the First

Factories that used to make perfume, T-shirts, and cars are now making supplies including face masks, ventilators, and hand sanitizer. Factories that usually make sneakers and iPhones have switched over to masks.

A London-based company that makes and bottles boutique gin found they had lost their primary market when short-notice government lockdown policies caused every bar in the UK to shut its doors. They were able to start making and supplying sanitiser at short notice and helped save their business.

Unprecedented demand

As the coronavirus crisis has progressed, doctors and nurses have raised alarms about dwindling supplies of PPE. The shortfall not only puts front-line workers at risk of infection, it may also limit testing capacity (because someone wearing PPE is generally required to administer the tests) and reduce the number of doctors attending to patients at the most critical moments.

Similarly urgent is the need for ventilators, the machines that help the sickest Covid-19 patients breathe when they can’t do so on their own; too few, and doctors could be faced with the same horrifying triage scenarios as in Italy, where doctors had to decide which of their patients would be hooked up to the lifesaving equipment based on their odds of survival.

To help prevent the spread of the coronavirus so hospitals don’t become even more overwhelmed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using hand sanitizer if soap and water aren’t available. A ready supply is needed to protect essential workers like grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, and warehouse workers, but many have complained they don’t have access to it since it has been sold out almost everywhere since February.