Several of these women have been hopping frantically from one supermarket to another in search of their preferred brands.

“As for now, I don’t know how I will manage because this is the only brand I’ve used and I don’t think am ready to switch on to others.”

 Some of the sanitary pads that went missing on the counters were Always and some pampers. Women who are used to these products have for the last two weeks been advised by supermarket attendants to choose from other available brands.

Tabby Wangui, who delivered recently, complains of how she wasn’t able to purchase a particular brand of diapers for her child.

“All this is on the pretext that they are simply out of stock! Imagine right now I have to use the nappies which my baby isn’t used to,” says Wangui.

These women are a representation of the hundreds who are affected with the current shortage of these essential products.

The supermarkets too are astounded with what is going on.  An attendant at Tusky’s supermarket claims that Always Pads have disappeared, with stocks of Pampers diapers starting to trickle in a few days ago.  

 “This”, says the attendant “is due to the aftermath of the post election crisis in Kenya that has probably led to the distributors and manufacturers of these products to stop supplying as they wait for the situation to normalise.”

At Uchumi supermarket the story is the same. “The shortage is due to the fact that pads have been donated to thousands of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in various camps within Kenya. And we are not sure of the next restocking,” says an attendant at the supermarket, who identified himself only as Peter.

At Nakumatt outlets, the attendants said they have in the last one week ran out of stocks for both Always and Pampers, and are now waiting for the distributors to act.

According to a source at Procter and Gamble Services, the main distributors of Always in the country, their consignment is being held at the Port of Mombassa due to the congestion occasioned by post-election violence. Also, their manufacturers in Cairo Egypt are yet to send the next batch of the product.

“What has happened has greatly affected the distribution of various products across the country including fresh produce and other vital commodities,” says the source.

“You see we understand that our customers have been greatly affected by this major crisis, but our manufacturers distribute the products in batches and until the withheld stock is dispersed, they cannot restock.”

Many of the retailers of the products are however happy that things will normalise by the end of next week as their distributors have already made plans to bring in what is held up at Mombassa.

Distributors of the products are reassuring women and mothers that they have already begun restocking pampers in majority of outlets and by next week things will be fine.

AWC Features