Sanitizer: Corona and Boom in the Market

Background: Hand hygiene is a simple and efficient strategy for minimizing illness transmission in public and clinical settings. The development of SARS-CoV-2 has created enormous challenge to global public health. Currently, the efforts to prevent COVID-19 are supportive with a goal of minimizing transmission. Method: In this review, an extensive literature search was performed with help of various search engines such as Google, Google Scholar, sci-hub, Science direct, Pub med. The authors have summarized the active ingredients and mechanism of action of benzalkonium chloride and alcohol against bacteria and viruses. Various research reports and patents that have been formulated hand sanitizers to prevent virus has been compiled in this article. Results: From the literature, it was observed that alcohol-based hand sanitizers can efficiently disturb the activity of encapsulated bacteria’s or viruses. Researchers found that there are various forms of hand sanitizer’s i.e. liquid, gel, foam, spray and wipes and recommending best method of delivery out of these is difficult. Two basic requirements of hand sanitizers for maintaining hand hygiene is its compliance and its coverage to the whole hand. Conclusions: The viruses and bacteria’s causing disease should be successful in eliminating them with the help of current hand hygiene solutions. After reviewing the literature, it is concluded that there is a vast scope in development of hand hygiene products.