The Antimicrobial Market: 5 Reasons for Future Growth
The last twelve months has seen the biggest rise in history of the use of antimicrobial products.
It isn’t difficult to see why.
The human race is fighting back against SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. In doing so, whole world is now reminded daily of the dangers of pathogens and how best to reduce our exposure to them.
But antimicrobial technology has been around for a very long time. Much longer in fact than you might suppose.
The first recorded use of it was the use of silver by the Phoenicians in 2000BC. It’s possible that it was used even earlier, when humans first realised that the properties of certain elements could control bacteria and disease.
Before the invention of antibiotics, silver was the go-to solution for infections. As we try to limit to use of antibiotics, it is increasingly being specified in hospital furniture and healthcare apparatus to reduce the spread of Hospital Acquired Infections
Since I formed Addmaster 21 years ago, the one question that I have asked myself most often is this: “What single thing can I do to educate the public about the potential of Biomaster antimicrobial technology”
As a logical person, my first thought was that if I could spend millions on TV advertising to stress to the public how important hygienic surfaces were to help reduce our exposure to pathogens then this would make the product fly.
It would of course be a difficult pitch to get just right. People would say, “well you would say that’”. That’s all that really held us back.
With the SARS-COV-2 pandemic that ‘difficulty’ of the pitch has gone for ever.
Here are 5 reasons why I predict that the antimicrobial market will soar in the next 10 years:
- We used to think that the wearing of masks by Asian oversea travellers was rather odd. We couldn’t understand what their fear was. But this fear came from the first SARS outbreak in the early 2000’s and that fear is still engrained in their society today. It’s what made them take SARS-COV-2 much more seriously than the West did at first.
- We are now much better informed about how to reduce transmission. We know that his means clean hands, hygienically clean surfaces and avoidance of close contact to potential carriers.
- It is said that any activity if practised for 30 days can become a habit. It’s been over a year since the SARS-COV-2 outbreak and the habits we learned will be with us for a very long time.
- Vaccines will give us added protection, but even now we are learning that mutations are occurring, and the vaccinations will need to be modified. What the vaccine will do however is give people more confidence to return to nearly normal new lives. This in turn will generate a massive surge in companies wanting antimicrobial products and surfaces to reassure and attract consumers to their commercial offering.
- The educational programme on how we stop pathogens entering our bodies, while we watch with horror the repercussions of Covid-19 on our society, has had an impact that no advertising budget could ever achieve.
