Provo – Ever since the epidemic began, U.S. Many people operate under the assumption that the hand sanitizer is effective in fighting the novel coronavirus, it should contain at least CDC 60% alcohol.
However, a new study published by a team of Brigham Young University researchers in the journal Hospital Fah Hospital Spital Infections casts doubt on those assumptions, as it shows that sanitizers using certain alcohol alternatives are only as effective as those that contain alcohol.
The team of researchers tested four commercial disinfectants, three of which are completely alcohol-free, and found that each is effective in preventing the virus.
“They all did a wonderful job,” said Benjamin Ogilvy, a BYU graduate student and leading researcher on paper.
For their testing, the researchers first mixed the novel coronavirus with various cleaning agents at one time and then, 15-30 seconds later, introduced the virus into living cells.
Each solution neutralizes the virus, even after the researchers added saliva and blood proteins to the solution mix, which sometimes distracts cleaning agents and makes them less effective.
Ogilvy said, “Our goal was to see if your hands got a little dirty, would it still work? And that’s okay,” Ogilvy said.
Perhaps the most notable of the successfully tested solutions is benzalkonium chloride, an ingredient used in many hand sanitizers and other cleaning products.
Ogilvy, who has spent years studying bactericides, said he was not surprised by the results.
“Envelope viruses, like the flu virus, are very wimpy; they are very easy to kill, and this agent always kills the envelope virus very well.”
Before COVID-19, benzalkonium chloride was the primary ingredient in many popular hand sanitizers.
Now, people tend to be ashamed of the products they use.
“People were using it before 2020,” BYU professor and co-author Brad Burgess said in a press release. “It seems that during this epidemic, drunken hand sanitizers have been thrown away by the virus, because the government was saying, ‘We don’t know this work,’ because of the novelty of the virus and the unique lab conditions. It needs to be tested.” . “
Ogilvy said he thinks the widespread belief about alcohol-free disinfectants is less effective in closing COVID-19 stem than the review paper published in early 2020.
“Overall, it’s a great article. It’s cited very widely, partly because it was early and partly because it was really complete,” he said. The authors of the paper said they thought benzalkonium chloride, the only active ingredient in alcohol-free hand sanitizers and the only one approved by the FDA, said the chemical was probably less effective against SARS-CV-2. Sets the phase for. “
Since the paper was published, many other articles have been written expressing concern that benzalkonium chloride is not as effective as other disinfectant agents.
Ogilvy hopes his team’s research will help provide the evidence needed to support pushback.
“It hasn’t really gotten a ton of press coverage yet, in part because no one has yet given a scientific result to back it up,” he said.
If more non-alcohol based hand sanitizers are used, it will also help solve numerous supply chain problems, he added.
“They work at very low concentrations,” he said of benzalkonium chloride sanitizers. “It makes it very easy to get to the ship in places. So carrying 10,000 gallons of alcohol is a kind of pain, but carrying 20 gallons of benzalkonium chloride is very easy.”
It is important to note that both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommend washing hands with soap and water as the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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