Analysis of Commercial Hand Sanitisers amid CoViD-19: Are We Getting the Products that We Need?
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Rapid Communication Theme: Recent Advances on Drug Delivery Systems for Viral Infections Guest Editor: Claudio Salomon
Analysis of Commercial Hand Sanitisers amid CoViD-19: Are We Getting the Products that We Need? Alberto Berardi,1 Beniamino Cenci-Goga,2 Luca Grispoldi,2 Lina Cossignani,3,5 and Diego Romano Perinelli4,5
Received 4 August 2020; accepted 14 September 2020
The CoViD-19 pandemic has caused a sudden spike in demand and production of hand sanitisers. Concerns are rising regarding the quality of such products, as the safeguard of consumers is a priority worldwide. We analyse here the ethanolic content of seven off-the-shelf hand sanitiser gels (two biocides and five cosmetics) from the Italian market, using gas chromatography. The WHO recommends that products containing ethanol should have 60–95% (v/v) alcohol. Four of the tested hand gels have ethanolic contents within the recommended range, while three products (all cosmetics) contain < 60% (v/v), i.e. 52.1% (w/w), ethanol. The product with the lowest alcoholic content has 37.1% w/w ethanol. Toxic methanol is not found in any of the hand sanitisers. We show, in addition, that products with the highest ethanolic content have generally greater antibacterial activity. In conclusion, all tested products are complying with the EU regulations, as the three “substandard” products are classified as cosmetics, whose purpose is cleaning and not disinfecting. Nevertheless, if such hand cleaners were inappropriately used as hand disinfectants, they might be ineffective. Thus, consumer safety relays on awareness and ability to distinguish between biocidal and cosmetics hand gels. The obtained results might sensitise the scientific community, health agencies and ultimately consumers towards the risks of using hand sanitisers of substandard alcoholic concentration. If the wrong product is chosen by consumers, public health can be compromised by the inappropriate use of “low-dosed” cosmetic gels as disinfectants, particularly during the period of the CoViD-19 pandemic. Abstract.
KEY WORDS: alcohol content; gas chromatography; ethanol-based disinfectants; antimicrobial; CoViD19.
INTRODUCTION At the beginning of 2020, a new coronavirus, namely SARS-CoV-2, has started to spread worldwide leading to the soAlberto Berardi and Beniamino Cenci-Goga are co-first authors. Guest Editor: Claudio Salomon Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1208/s12249-020-01818-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 1
Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, 11931, Jordan. 2 Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Perugia, via San Costanzo, 4, 06126, Perugia, Italy. 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Perugia, via S. Costanzo, 06126, Perugia, Italy. 4 School of Pharmacy, University of Camerino, 62032, Camerino, MC, Italy. 5 To whom correspondence should be addressed. (e–mail: [email protected]; [email protected])
called CoViD-19 pandemic (1
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