Manufacturers are scrambling to keep up with an increase in demand for sanitizer products, and some third-party retailers prices are charging exhorbitant prices, as fears of the novel coronavirus continue to grow.

Dr. Naeem Lodhi, owner of Eco ChemLabs in Vaughan, Ont., said his company has seen an almost 30 per cent increase in hand sanitizer sales over the past month.

Eco ChemLabs regularly supplies retailers, offices, hotels and restaurants with sanitizer products, according to its website.

During a regular month, Lodhi says that demand for sanitizer products is roughly 400-500 boxes among distributors. He says his firm has sold between 1,500-2,000 boxes since Canada saw its first cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at the end of January.

Lodhi says the high demand has outpaced their supply recently, meaning the company has been unable to follow through on all orders.

“There is a shortage of ingredients and chemicals necessary to produce hand sanitizer,” Lodhi told the Star on Monday. “That might impede production capacity and might lead to supply shortage.”

On Monday, Ontario health officials announced three more cases in the province of COVID-19, bringing the total to 18 in Ontario and 27 across Canada.

While officials say the risk to the public is still low, some manufacturers say customers are taking precautions and stocking up on products like hand sanitizer to reduce the possibility of contraction.

Public health officials have also advised residents that handwashing is still one of the best ways to keep viruses at bay.

On websites like Amazon.com, the cost of hand sanitizer products has soared while third-party retailers offer products at a jacked-up price.

One Purell product, a two-pack of 1,200 mL hand sanitizer, was priced at $104.56 as of Monday evening.

Another hand sanitizer product, labelled on Amazon.com as “EQUATE HAND SANITIZER KILLS 99.99% OF GERMS,” was listed at $74.94 by a third-party retailer called “LifeBasket.”

The increased demand also appears to have affected international companies, like Gojo Industries, based in the United States, that supply to Canadian retailers.

Samantha Williams, spokesperson for Gojo, located in Akron, Ohio, said the company has “increased production significantly” in light of demand for its hygiene products.

“We have experienced several demand surges in the past during other outbreaks — and this is on the higher end of the spectrum but not unprecedented,” Williams said in a statement.

“We have added shifts and have team members working overtime — in accordance with our plans for situations like this.”

Karl Littler, a spokesperson for the Retail Council of Canada, a not-for-profit association representing more than 45,000 retailers across the country, said they don’t have specific figures for hand sanitizer sales yet, though many of their members have increased orders for the products due to the virus outbreak.

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But Littler noted that COVID-19 may not be the sole contributing factor to supply numbers.

Protests along rail lines that oppose the building of a pipeline through the Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in British Columbia, has also “challenged the whole supply chain,” Littler said.

With files from Ilya Banares, The Canadian Press

Jacob Lorinc is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jacoblorinc