Hand Sanitizers versus Soap and Water. Do hand sanitizers truly eliminate the need for the conventional soap and water hand washing?
While hand sanitizers do indeed kill about 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, they fail to remove bacterial spores. Some of the most pathogenic bacteria form spores to survive adverse environmental conditions. Clostriudium difficile is one of the common bacteria that forms spores. Symptoms of C. difficile infections range from severe diarrhea to pseudomembranous colitis and at times cause death. People of older age and children, as well as those who are immunocompromised, are particularly at high risk. Spores are generally highly resistant to high temperatures, dehydration, and various pH changes. It is the hand scrubbing performed during the conventional soap and water hand washing that helps eliminate the spores from the surface of the skin. Currently, FDA recommends to use hand sanitizers only as adjuvants to the regular hand washing. Note: Regular soap is partially bactericidal. Some bacteria have cell walls and capsids to protect them; others only have lipid membranes that can be easily disrupted by the cationic property of the soap. When the cell membrane is disrupted, bacterium simply lyses, or bursts, spilling out its DNA and organelles. Some soaps contain additional antimicrobial agents, such as triclosan, that also help to kill bacteria. Triclosan, however, can combine with the chlorine in the tap water to form chloroform gas, which is a known human carcinogen. Upon exposure to UV light, triclosan's intermediates convert into dioxin, a potent toxin and endocrine disruptor, and an environmental threat.