Hand Sanitizer use may not stop spread of flu

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Hand sanitizers no better than ordinary soaps

ANI, Sep 15, 2010, 03.07pm IST

Hand sanitizers are no better than ordinary soaps in protecting you against

colds and flu, but they sure protect you against gastrointestinal illness, found

a new study.

Researchers found that test subjects who used the sanitizers had a 42 percent

rate of coming down with a cold, versus 51 percent of the volunteers who didn't

use them.

As for the flu, some 12 percent of volunteers who used a sanitizer got the flu,

as compared with 15 percent who didn't use a hand sanitizer.

" We all thought if you used hand disinfectants, it would have an impact, " the

New York Daily News quoted Dr. , the study's research leader as

telling The Daily Progress.

However, the University of Virginia research, funded by Dial Corp., which makes

a hand sanitizer, did show that the sanitizers worked against gastrointestinal

illness.

Additional research is necessary to learn how cold and flu bugs are passed from

one person to the next, said .

If it turns out that the bugs spread sickness through the air, rather than by

actual physical contact, the similar infection rates between users and nonusers

of sanitizers would be explicable.

For the research, volunteers were given bottles of a disinfectant made with

organic acids that can kill viruses up to four hours after being applied. They

were told to use it every three hours.

To the surprise of the researchers, the test subjects who followed the

directions had similar rates of cold and flu as those who did not.

The study has been reported on Consumerist.com.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Hand-sanitiz\

ers-no-better-than-ordinary-soaps/articleshow/6559170.cms