Pretoria - A study by the University of Pretoria has revealed that most commercial alcohol-based hand sanitisers are substandard and do not contain the required amount of alcohol to be classified as effective against the causative agent of Covid-19.
The study was conducted by senior lecturer Dr Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf between June and December last year.
He used sanitisers that were provided by volunteers, which were mostly used in places such as shops, establishments and schools.
Yusuf said the idea stemmed from curiosity due to the rapid increase of different brands of hand sanitisers, which indicated on the bottle their alcohol content.
“That sparked the interest in me as a trained analytical chemist to check the contents.
“I started by checking sanitisers on a small scale, and then one thing led to another and the samples kept increasing through requests I made to people who provided the sanitisers to be tested,” he said.
Yusuf said 50 products of different origins and formulations obtained off the shelf and in public places in and around Tshwane were analysed for their alcohol content, using gas chromatography.
“Ethanol was the most common alcohol used, followed by isopropanol.
“Only 21 (42%) of the products analysed contained at least 70% alcohol; of these, only 14 (28%) met the World Health Organization’s recommended 80% alcohol content to have a virucidal effect on Sars-CoV-2.”
Yusuf said the results were concerning, particularly as South Africa is headed into the fourth wave and mostly relies on this non-pharmaceutical intervention for limiting the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Yusuf said he recommended that consumers looked at the products they use and ensure that they were at least labelled as containing enough alcohol, from 70% upwards.
“Also, people could make their own using the World Health Organization-recommended formulation.
“Government should partner with universities and other research institutions in this as there are many ways such partnership would be beneficial during and beyond the pandemic.”
The Gauteng Department of Health could not be reached for comment.
Last week Gauteng Premier David Makhura warned about possible virus spikes as many people would soon be heading to other provinces.
“We know that during the festive season, millions of people leave our province for other provinces. We don’t want people to be carrying this variant to other provinces, especially to people who are not vaccinated,” he said.
Makhura said the plan was to vaccinate an additional 1.5 million people in the province before the festive break.
Pretoria News