Hand sanitizer brands/products for Coronavirus/COVID-19 available in India (with >70% alcohol content)

Even though washing your hands is a better choice to kill Coronavirus (COVID-19), there are times when you can’t wash your hands (e.g. while working, in meetings or commuting via public transport). Today grocery and medical stores in Bangalore (India) ran out of stock of hand sanitizers. I personally checked 8 medical stores, 2 super markets; Moreover, Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers, Dunzo, Bigbasket, Medlife, 1mg, Pharmeasy, Apollo, Practo, Medplus, Netmeds and couldn’t find a single bottle of Lifebuoy or Dettol’s sanitizers.

It was sad to see that a couple of medical stores were even selling unbranded herbal sanitizers to cash in the opportunity 😭

Do you know that hand sanitizers are only effective against Coronavirus when they have at least 70% alcohol?

A lot of sanitizer brands in market don’t have 70% alcohol and they might not mention this explicitly. Also, alcohol is mentioned under “Composition” under a variety of names including ethyl alcohol, ethanol, isopropanol or n-propanol etc.

So, which brands/products to buy? I’m no expert but based on my research (references at the bottom of this post), you can buy any of these 5 products (if I find more, I will add them to this blogpost):

1. Sterillium Hand Sanitizer

Sterillium is liquid mixture of 1- Propanol and 2- Propanol with total alcohol concentration of 75%.

This product is sold by multiple manufacturers in India, but the product name will be same. So, if the shape of bottle/container looks different, just look for “Sterillium” name.

2. Dettol Healthy Touch Instant Hand Sanitizer

Contains  “Alcohol IP (Denatured) eq. to absolute alcohol 72.34%” (along with other disinfectants).

3. 3M Avagard CHG Handrub (pink color)

Contains “Ethyl Alcohol IP 70% v/v” (also known popularly as Ethanol) along with other disinfectants.

4. 3M Avagard Handrub (blue color)

Contains Isopropanol I.P. 45% w/w and 1-Propanol I.P. 30% w/w (total alcohol concentration 75%); along with other disinfectants.

5. Lifebuoy Immunity Boosting Hand Sanitizer

Total 10 (red) variant contains Ethyl Alcohol 95% v/v I.P. 62% W/W (along with other disinfectants).

You might not have heard about 3M Avagard and Sterillium, but they are widely used at hospitals across the world (including USA and India).

Disclaimer: The content in this blogpost is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Bonus Content: Disinfectant for physical surfaces

Quoting Harvard Medical School:

Question: Can the coronavirus live on fabric, carpet, and other soft surfaces? What about hard surfaces?
Answer: Currently, there’s no evidence that COVID-19, the new coronavirus, can be transmitted from soft surfaces like fabric or carpet to humans.

It’s possible that the virus could be on frequently-touched surfaces, such as a doorknob, although early information suggests viral particles would be likely to survive for just a few hours, according to the WHO. This also assumes that someone who is sick with the virus has touched a surface after sneezing or coughing into their hand or rubbing their eye. That’s why personal preventive steps like frequently washing hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, and wiping down often-touched surfaces with disinfectants or a household cleaning spray, are a good idea.

These two disinfectant sprays for hard & soft surfaces from Dettol also have >70% alcohol, so they should help in killing Coronavirus on physical surfaces:

Remember, all of these products appear on Amazon.in/Flipkart, but go out of stock very soon due to high demand. So, keep checking regularly.

PS: As of this writing 3M Avagard CHG is available on Amazon India store here (until stocks last Update: it’s out of stock now). I have seen products going out of stock in middle of night within few minutes, so order as soon as possible.

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32035997
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590088920300081
3. https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2334-5-17
4. https://nypost.com/2020/03/02/hand-washing-or-hand-sanitizer-whats-more-effective-against-coronavirus/
5. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/as-coronavirus-spreads-many-questions-and-some-answers-2020022719004#q5