The rapid spread of the coronavirus has left shoppers stripping shelves of hand sanitiser and websites hiking up their prices.

A Maidstone mum was left outraged when she saw sellers were charging £50 for a 250ml bottle of hand gel and £20.99 for a travel sized one, on Amazon - more than 50 times more than bottles usually are.

Face masks are also being sold for more than £10 on the internet giant.

Leda Rodrigues, 55, went online after she found that Wilkinson's, Superdrug, Poundland and other shops in Maidstone had run out of the much-in-demand item.

Ms Rodrigues is a cleaner specialising in neglected houses, so she knows the normal prices of cleaning and sanitation products.

The mum-of-two said: "People are trying to make money out of other's misery.

You can normally get a pair of masks for £2.99 on the high street but they are being sold for £11 or £17.

"How can this already be happening? I am from Brazil and when our water standards weren't acceptable for anything to drink, they put the prices of bottled water up."

Ms Rodrigues said she never expected something similar to happen in England.

She still has hand santiser at her Langley Park home, but it is running low.

On Monday, a business at Maidstone Studios confirmed one of its members of staff had tested positive for the deadly condition, now named Covid-19. This was the first confirmed case in Kent.

By the afternoon, hand sanitiser had disappeared from the shelves at the Tesco store and pharmacy closest to the studios.

Online retailers selling the item at more reasonable prices are already out of stock. Viking's 500ml gel priced at £1.99 is unavailable, as is Nilqua's 500ml hand sanitiser, sold at Boots for £4.15.

Tesco's website has also run out of Carex hand Gel Aloe Vera.

It comes after a patient with underlying health conditions became the first person in the UK to die after testing positive for the coronavirus. They were based in Berkshire.

The Department of Health today says 115 people in the UK have now been diagnosed with the virus.

This includes 17 in the south east, 25 in London, eight in the east of England, nine in the Midlands, 10 in the north east and Yorkshire, 17 in the north west, 15 in the south west, and four in areas "to be determined".

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