Throughout the COVID pandemic, we’ve heard how important it is to have clean hands in the fight against germs and disease control. Washing for 20 seconds with hand soap while singing ‘Happy Birthday’ or rubbing hands with hand sanitiser gel at every opportunity has become second nature to us all. But what does sanitiser do? Do we know how much hand sanitiser to use? And how long does hand sanitiser last? Which is the right hand sanitiser dispenser for my premises?
As we come to the end of lockdown again, leaving the relative safety of our homes more often, we’ll be using more and more hand sanitiser dispensers in shops, at work, in restaurants and on public transport as we fight our way to the end of the COVID pandemic.
What does sanitiser do?
The best way to clean hands is to wash them with running water and hand soap. This will loosen the germs and remove them completely. Hand sanitisers are usually alcohol-based gels, used to kill bacteria and viruses by rubbing on the hands when hand washing isn’t available. An alcohol hand sanitiser gel can penetrate the coronavirus and kill it while evaporating quickly so as to remove the need to dry hands.
It’s also been discovered that alcohol free hand sanitiser, containing benzalkonium chloride is effective against coronavirus. This is a particularly popular option for healthcare workers and those who have to repeatedly clean hands as it prevents dry hands commonly experienced with the alcohol content of ordinary hand rub.
How much hand sanitiser should I use?
As with washing hands, you should use enough hand sanitiser gel that takes 20 seconds to rub all over the hands and fingers, until they are dry.
Frequent use of hand sanitiser with alcohol content may cause dry hands. If this is the case, switch to a non-alcohol hand sanitiser gel, and if you still suffer from dry hands, it’s important to protect them with moisturiser so that skin isn’t broken and germs penetrate the surface, causing infection.
How long does hand sanitiser last?
Hand sanitiser will clean hands from the germs that are present at that instant and will not provide future protection. So, after using hand rub, as soon as you touch something else, your hands will pick up germs again.
Since the effects of hand sanitiser gel are short-lived, for effective disease control it’s important to encourage repeated use of hand sanitiser throughout your premises. Making hand rub available in the most convenient hand sanitiser dispensers will boost its usage.
phs has a range of hand sanitiser dispensers, from manual to automatic, and anti-bacterial, 1-litre wall-mounted dispensers to 5-litre outside sanitiser stations. All provide easy access to hand rub with alcohol content as well as alcohol free sanitiser and are available with a refill service to help us all combat the COVID pandemic.
