Fighting coronavirus in UK: Pakistani couple providing elderly free-of-charge sanitary packs

MANCHESTER: A Pakistani couple in Britain is giving away face masks, hand sanitizers and cleaning wipes to the elderly free-of-charge in a bid to help fight the deadly coronavirus.

Elderly locals can either pick up the pack from the store directly or can have it delivered to their door by contacting the couple via phone or Facebook.

Asiyah Javed, who runs the store with husband Jawad Javed, said: "I was out shopping the other day [when] I met this old woman. She was so distressed and was crying because she couldn’t get any sanitizer, tissues or everyday essentials from the supermarket."

"I feel it is not fair on the elderly -- some can't even get out of their house. Therefore, we decided to make some packs for the elderly for free and to some of them even we had delivered at their doors," she added.

“We are delivering 30 packages to a care home where there are 30 people living, and we’ve got another couple of hundred in the shop. Some people are asking for them to be delivered as they’re old, or disabled, or don’t drive. We are just trying to help people who can’t get out of the house," she further said.

Her husband, Jawad Javed, echoed the sentiment. "I am delighted that so many people are helping the elderly now. Our goodwill gesture has motivated others and [other] people around the UK are also helping others in this difficult time. Each bag costs us about £2 to put together and we have delivered 500 of them," he told Geo News.

“One of the central principles of Islam is helping others. We have spent a lot of time with our grandparents and we feel that if they were alive, we wouldn't want them to be struggling," he further added.

Panic buying in many parts of the UK has seen supermarket shelves emptied of items such as toilet roll and painkillers, while online shopping sites including Amazon and eBay have seen packs of hand sanitizer hiked up to hundreds of pounds each by opportunistic sellers.