Study Reveals That Hand Sanitizers Can Not Prevent Cold Or Flu
September 17th, 2010 - 12:38 am ICT by GDBy Ranjan Bhaduri
Sep 16, (THAINDIAN NEWS) There is a common perception that the hand sanitizers are better than common soaps against germs and bacteria infection. However, a recent study carried out by the University of Virginia has hinted that their effectiveness may not be that good in reality. At least they are not effective at flu or cold prevention, according to the research. This can come as a shock for the majority of the users who use some kind of sanitizer or other at their homes and workplaces. However, this does not mean that the sanitizers have no beneficial properties at all. On the contrary certain brands of sanitizers offer some amount of protection against a range of gastrointestinal ailments and common infections as the study has found out. The effectiveness of a sanitizer also depends on its components and the amount of alcohol it contains.
However, in some cases the bacteria responsible for spreading flu can be transmitted through air and not from physical contact. In such cases the sanitizer should not be blamed for infection, think the researchers. After the global outbreak of Swine Flu the usage of hand sanitizer has gone up significantly. However, the research may act as a dampener for those who used to think it kills most of the germs and bacteria. The results of this research was published at the year meeting at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. The discovery may make the medical community sit up and take notice.
This research was funded by a company named Dial Corp. It makes soap and hand sanitizers.
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Tags: antimicrobial agents, bacteria infection, beneficial properties, chemotherapy, cold prevention, dampener, flu, gastrointestinal, gastrointestinal ailments, germs and bacteria, hand sanitizer, interscience conference, medical community, outbreak, perception, soap, soaps, swine flu, university of virginia, workplaces