According to the guidelines of WHO, one should regularly clean his/her hands with water and soap or hand sanitizers. If you are travelling and do not have any access to soap and water then you can use hand sanitizer. For oily and sticky hands sanitizers gel are comparatively less effective.
While travelling you should use alcohol with 60-70% alcohol content. Always use sanitizer after touching any dirty surface or sick person to avoid infection. Sanitisers are usually tested for various viruses and can help you in getting rid of all possible types of viruses. In the market you can find several brands and types of sanitizers.
Some oil-based and some with less alcohol content sanitizers are available. While as per expert advice there is no as such guideline that can be used as standard to use any particular type of sanitizer. However, alcohol-based sanitizers are recommended for prevention from corona virus infection.
How Much Effective Hand-Sanitizers are?
The gold standard to wash the hands is to clean them by using soap and water that also helps in preventing any spread of infectious diseases. To remove oil from the hand one can use soap and water, while to clean then after visiting any sick or touching anything that may be infected or contaminated one can use hand sanitizers.
Are Hand-Sanitizers Useful?
Hand sanitizers are useful in the hospitals that can prevent bacteria or virus transmission from one patient to another. However, except hospitals hand sanitizers are also being used by anyone to protect themselves.
Hand sanitizers can protect the hands and are easy-to-apply. Alcohol-based sanitizers can easily clean your hands that too in convenient way. If you do not have soap and water, then hand sanitizers can be proved a convenient way to clean the hands.
As per CDC guidelines if you want to get maximum effect of hand sanitizers, then you will have to use it correctly. It means you should use it in right amount on both side surfaces of your hands, until it gets dry. Moreover, do not wipe your hand after applying hand sanitizer on your hand.
Are all Hand Sanitizers Same?
It’s important that when you use hand sanitizer you should know its content. It should contain atleast 60% alcohol.
The sanitizers with lower alcohol-concentration may not be much effective to kill the germs. Any non-alcohol based sanitizer or the one with less than 60 to 95% of alcohol content may not be much effective.
Non-alcohol-based sanitizers may not work equally to kill the germs as those with high content of sanitizers.
Final Words
You should use sanitizer to clean the hand in absence of soap and water or if you have touched any dirty or chemical surface or layer. If your hands are too greasy or soiled like after working at any greasy or heavily soiled environment, then hand sanitizers may not work well to clean the hands.
While, washing hands wash then at least for 20 seconds with any non-bacterial soap and warm water and then use hand sanitizer to make them clean.
