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Coronavirus sparks a sanitary pad crisis in India
May 22, 2020
Schoolgirls in India are facing a massive shortage of sanitary napkins because schools - a critical part of the supply chain - are closed during the coronavirus lockdown. This has left millions of teenagers across the country anxious, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.
For the past several years, Priya has been receiving a pack of 10 sanitary napkins every month from her school.
The 14-year-old, who lives in Badli, a slum in northwest Delhi, attends a state-run school where pads are distributed to all female students in middle and senior school under a government scheme to promote menstrual hygiene.
It's an important campaign in a country where only 36% of its 355 million menstruating females use napkins (the remaining use old cloth, rags, husk or ash to manage the flow) and nearly 23 million girls drop out of school annually after they start their periods.
But, with schools shut because of the lockdown, the supply of pads too has stopped.
"I got my last pack in February," says Priya. "Since then, I have had to buy them from the local chemist. I have to pay 30 rupees ($0.40;£0.30) for a pack of seven napkins."
Priya considers herself lucky that her parents can still pay for her to buy pads. Many of her neighbours have lost their jobs in the lockdown and can't even afford food. Girls in those families have had to start using rags.
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