INEOS has announced its plans to build three new factories of hand sanitiser in the UK, Germany and France in a bid to combat Covid-19.

The manufacturing company intends to produce one million bottles of hand sanitiser per month from each of the three new facilities to address the European shortage.

The new product will be manufactured according to the specifications of the World Health Organisation and will be supplied free of charge to hospitals.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Founder and Chairman of INEOS, said: “It is becoming more and more evident that contact between the hands and the mouth is an important cause of contagion of coronavirus.

“INEOS is the largest European manufacturer of the basic ingredient of hand sanitizer. We will build three factories, in the UK, Germany and France in 10 days to produce very large reserves.”