Final Disposal

Washing your hand frequently with soap and water can prevent the spread of influenza. If water and soap are not available, you can use hand hand sanitizers.

What’s hand sanitizer? A hand sanitizer is a gel, foam, and liquid solution which acts as an alternative to hand washing with water and soap. You will find two types of hand sanitizers, alcohol based hand sanitizers and non-alcohol hand sanitizers.

Alcohol based hand sanitizers use alcohol to kill most bacteria, fungi and some viruses. You can find different amount of concentration of alcohol in several sanitizers. Some have as high as 85% of alcohol whereas others have 60%. Most hand sanitizers found in the market contain 62% of alcohol. The most common brands of alcohol based hand sanitizers include Purell sanitizers, Avant, Sterillium, Desderman and Allsept S.

Some hand sanitizers come with extra ingredients including natural products and essential oils. These hand sanitizers can kill germs as well as moisturize your skin. Hospitals use sanitizer dispensers equipped with elbow controlled mechanism to stop any contact while using the pump.

Non-alcohol based hand sanitizers use chemical agents such as benzalkonium chloride or triclosan to kill germs. The quantity of benzalkonium chloride or triclosan of these products is low.

Given that they do not contain alcohol, which is a preservative, the non-alcohol based hand sanitizers are succeptible to contamination.

How to Use Hand Sanitizer

We all know that hand sanitizers could kill most bacteria and viruses. How do we use it properly and when should we use it?

This is the correct way to use hand sanitizer:

• Apply enough solution to wet your hands
• Rub your hands together. Cover both hands and fingers with the solution. Keep rubbing until your hands are dry.
• If your hands are visibly dirty, you should wash them with soap and water.
• When to sanitize your hands? You should sanitizer your hands:
  • before and after food preparation.
  • before meals.
  • before and after treating wounds.
  • after using the toilet.
  • after touching an animal.
  • after handling something that could be contaminated, such as garbage.

Positive aspects of Hand Sanitizers

Most people think that the alcohol based hand sanitizers could make your skin dry. Well it is true. However, it dries skin less than hand washing with soap and water.

Hand sanitizers kill viruses like flu virus, the common cold virus, and HIV and a number of bacteria such as antibiotic resistant bacteria and TB bacteria. They also kill fungi.

Common Risks

Alcohol based hand sanitizers can catch fire because of its alcohol content. However, hand sanitizers with high high water content or moisturizing agents may not produce this effect. To minimize the risk of fire, it would be a good idea to rub your hands until dry. This is because it only takes few second for the flammable alcohol in hand sanitizers to evaporate into the air. Your hands are dry means that the alcohol is gone.

Tags: flu, foam soap, Gojo, hand soap, hand soap foam, Purell, sanitizers

This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2011 at 6:40 am and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.