Alcohols and Denaturants Hand Rub Sanitizers Used to Curb COVID-19 Pandemic in Kiambu County, Kenya

Martha W. Gacuiga¹ , Ruth N. Wanjau² , Martin K. Murigi³ , Gerald W. Mbugua⁴ , Antony M. Ndiritu⁵ , Nicholas K. Gikonyo⁶

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.9 , Issue.3 , pp.1-5, Jun-2022

Online published on Jun 30, 2022

Copyright © Martha W. Gacuiga, Ruth N. Wanjau, Martin K. Murigi, Gerald W. Mbugua, Antony M. Ndiritu, Nicholas K. Gikonyo . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The coronavirus disease outbreak in 2019 (COVID-19) became a pandemic that led to tremendous increase in the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers globally. Governments and public health agencies across the world advocated for hand hygiene as one of the preventive measures against COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, washing of hands with water and soap or use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers became mandatory. The efficacy of these sanitizers is dependent on the alcohol concentration in the hand sanitizer. Alcohols commonly used in sanitizers include ethanol and isopropyl alcohol at levels of 60% to 80%. Ethanol used to manufacture the sanitizers is of industrial grade and is usually denatured to prevent human consumption. Denaturants include methanol, pyridine, acetone and denatonium benzoate at levels of 630 ppm for methanol and 20 to 50 ppm for denatonium benzoate. This paper mull over comparing levels of alcohols and denaturants with label claims of alcohol-based hand sanitizers used to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in Kiambu County, Kenya. Samples of alcohol-based hand sanitizers of different brands were analyzed in triplicates using Attenuated Total Reflectance- Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometry (ATR-FTIR). Each hand sanitizer was given a unique sample identifier code ranging from HS1-HS12. The findings indicated that alcohol-based hand sanitizers contain significant amount of either ethanol or isopropyl alcohol and low concentration of methanol or denatonium benzoate. The percentage of ethanol ranged from 4.607±0.0 to 81.23±0.3. Nine samples showed concentrations above 70% ethanol. The levels found in the study were not in agreement with levels indicated on the labels. Isopropyl alcohol was found in only two samples contrary to the label claims in five samples. The analysis showed that all samples contained either isopropyl alcohol, methanol or denatonium benzoate as denaturants with levels ranging from 0.040±0.02% to 72.6857±0.4241%, while the label claim indicated the presence of denaturants in only five samples. However, two samples gave methanol levels that exceeded threshold limits of 630 ppm (0.063% v/v). In conclusion, the concentration levels of alcohols and denaturants in all alcohol-based hand sanitizers analysed in this study didn’t match with the label claim. This calls for stringent measures by regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with set standards in the manufacture of alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Key-Words / Index Term :
COVID-19, Alcohol-based hand sanitizers, Alcohols, Denaturants, Label claims, compliance

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