Aishila Kar, Amity University Kolkata
Sanitizers play an important role in this era of controlling COVID infection. It is well known that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) strongly recommend the use of alcohol-based sanitizers for prevention against SARS-CoV-2. However, scientists at Brigham Young University have claimed alcohol-free hand sanitizers to be equally potent in disinfecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus as alcohol-based sanitizers.
To test their theory, they treated samples of the novel coronavirus with some alcohol-based sanitizers which mainly consisted of benzalkonium chloride and several other quaternary ammonium compounds which are normally found in alcohol-free disinfectants. Out of the three disinfectants that were used for testing, one was a hand sanitizer while the two other were used in cleaning cutlery, non-porous surfaces, and medical devices. Most of the test cases showed that alcohol-free compounds wiped out at least 99.9% of the virus within a short span of just 15 seconds. (Only one compound, that was used to disinfect food contact surfaces and dishes showed effectiveness in 30 seconds). The virus stopped invading and killing the cells, showing that it had been deactivated by the compounds. Further, it was also found that the effectiveness of these disinfectants to kill viruses does not get significantly diminished on dilution in hard water.
This information could benefit millions of people worldwide. The world has faced acute shortages of sanitizers (usually alcohol-based ones) during this pandemic at various times. So, such alcohol-free formulations can also be devised to keep up with the increasing demand for sanitizers.
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Reference: “Alcohol-free hand sanitizer and other quaternary ammonium disinfectants quickly and effectively inactivate SARS-CoV-2” by Benjamin H. Ogilvie, Antonio Solis-Leal, J. Brandon Lopez, Brian D. Poole, Richard A. Robison and Bradford K. Berges, 28 November 2020, Journal of Hospital Infection.https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30547-8/fulltext
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