HOW SANITIZER OR HANDWASH WORKS?
-blog by The Darwin's Finch
As Covid-19 cases started exploding all the countries, Sanitizers & Handwash has become more precious than diamond in this market. People need to stay in line for an hour to bring home a 30mL Sanitizer.
In 1966, Lupe Hernandez, a student nurse from Bakersfield, California, patented the idea of an alcohol-based gel to clean hands in the absence of handwashing facilities. However, it wasn't until the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic in 2009 that the product went from being used in institutions to something the public carried with them.
Sanitizers have also evolved to add other unnecessary ingredients in place of alcohol, to meet their consumer's sake. There have been flavors, colours and lots of other stuff that have been added in Sanitizers since then.
And in 2020, Covid-19 has reminded the same again as the sale of Sanitizers & Handwash surged about 90% after the Pandemic hits US and UK.
NHS & CDC both has recommended that a hand sanitizer need at least 60% alcohol to work against novel coronavirus. And there is options also for those with sensitive skin- NON-ALCOHOL BASED SANITIZER.
But do they really work as of they claim!
There's the report you can see how your dirty hands get cleaned just after you rub those with soapy water or sanitizer for 20 seconds at least.
You can easily observe the difference under exposure to UV light.
Let's get into a little deeper,
This is your unwashed hand, filled with dirty dust particles, perhaps some bacteria and viruses, and most probably with particles of every surface you touch.
According to a 2019 study by the American Society for Microbiology, using running water with soap to wash your hands is more effective than a dab of gel that you have not quite rubbed in.
But no one can clearly examine if there's anything like coronaviruses or not, but safety is the best protocol.
It's not that you haven't washed your hand for a day, the same picture might come even after an hour of not washing your hands.
In the next clip, you can see the effect of using a hand sanitizer.
It's clear that how the dirt has gone just after a little treatment with sanitizer.
And the last picture clears out every doubt you have between a hand sanitizer and a soapy handwash.
NHS has given the advice to wash your hands with soap and water as the first preference or if that's not possible then you can switch to hand sanitizer as well.
But yes, nothing can beat the effectiveness of a soapy handwash, the reason is mentioned in the next context.
The best solution to prevent coronavirus infection from touching surfaces should be not to touch your face, mouth and nose, from where the external pathogens enters our body.
HOW SANITIZERS OR HANDWASH WORKS?
Respiratory viruses — like the novel coronavirus, the flu, and the common cold — can be spread via our hands. If someone is sick, a hand can touch some mucus and viral particles will stick to the hand. If someone is well, hands act like sticky traps for viruses. We can pick up droplets that contain the virus, and they’ll stay on our hands, and perhaps enter our bodies if we touch our hands to our faces. That’s why our hands are the front lines in the war against Covid-19.
In the earlier, I've claimed soapy handwash to be more effective than sanitizer in getting rid off this virus, but why ?
That’s because when you wash your hands with soap and water, you’re not just wiping viruses off your hands and sending them down the drain. You’re actually annihilating the viruses, rendering them harmless. Soap “is almost like a demolition team breaking down a building and taking all the bricks away, says Palli Thordarson, prof. at the university of NSW.
But how these all things happen?
First of all, we've to understand what a soap is and what its made up of. A soap is made up of molecules that are amphipathic in nature- that means these soap molecules are like a stick with cotton in both ends having different functions.
Its actually have dual nature- one end of the molecules is hydrophilic i.e. attracted to water when placed in water; and the other end is hydrophobic i.e repel itself from water. The end attracted by water is repelled by fat, and the end repelled by water is attracted by fat. So it's kind of a complex thing but very straightforward once you understand the mechanism.
The most common soap is made up of “sodium laureth sulfate” — it’s a detergent that’s often mixed with other chemicals to both clean our hands and not damages our skin.
You can relate the mechanism with once you put oil into water. What happens is the oil drops pool up in little masses and floats on the water surface. That's because the oil or say, the fat doesn't get mixed up with water.
But if you mix some soap into the oil and water, you'll see the oil getting dispersed and dissolved.
It happens because the amphipathic soap molecules are attracted to their fat-loving ends towards the fat of oil-drops and then it tears up. It mixed up with the water with its water-loving hydrophilic sides and that's how it surrounds the oil particles and moves them away from one another.
The envelope is made up of Fat (Lipid) & Protein that are attracted by the hydrophobic ends and repelled by the hydrophilic ends of the soap molecules.
The diagram shows the presence of the lipid bilayer envelope of Coronavirus surrounding RNA genome inside of it.
One side of the soap molecule (the one that’s attracted to fat and repelled by water) buries its way into the virus’s fat and protein shell. Fortunately, the chemical bonds holding the virus together aren’t very strong, so this intrusion is enough to break the virus’s coat. So it pulls the virus apart, it makes it soluble in water, and it disintegrates. Then the harmless shards of virus get flushed down the drain.
And even if the soap doesn’t destroy every virus, you’ll still rid them from your hands with soap and water, as well as any grease or dirt they may be clinging to. Soap will also wash away bacteria and other viruses that may be a bit tougher than coronavirus, and harder to disintegrate.
The trick is this all takes a little time to happen, and that’s why you need to take at least 20 seconds to wash your hands.
Alcohol, the main ingredient in hand sanitizer, can destroy viruses, too. Sanitizers actually work in a similar way, the alcohol molecules are somewhat amphiphiles. The thing is, you need a very high concentration of alcohol to achieve the same effect. (Chemicals called quaternary ammonium compounds — the main ingredient in Lysol — kill viruses too but can be a bit harsher on the skin.)
That's why it is recommended to use handwash instead of sanitizer when you have access to both.
You don't need any special ANTI-VIRAL SOAP or ANTI-BACTERIAL SOAP, it all does the same instead of the label or brand name & the price tag.
It's not a special property of soap to get away from viruses and bacteria, instead, it's the chemical property that exists in each and every soap in the market.
And yes, don't forget to wash and rub your hands for at least 20 seconds all the time- that's what it takes to say happy birthday twice, as mentioned by CDC.
STAY HOME STAY SAFE
The Darwin's Finch
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