The study assesses the antibacterial efficacy of ginger and garlic hand sanitizer in controlling COVID-19, suggesting a local solution for the pandemic.
Hand sanitizers are chemical preparation used as antiseptics in the prevention and control of diseases. The coronavirus disease is an infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus which is susceptible to tropical temperature, disinfectants and antiseptics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hand sanitizers were largely unavailable at some point due to the lockdown situation which crippled commercial and economic activities in Nigeria. In the light of the lockdown, there was a need to develop an indigenous hand sanitizer product with local, cheap and available materials without necessarily depending on importation. This study assessed the antibacterial properties of ginger and garlic blended with isopropyl alcohol as an effective hand sanitizer for the control and prevention of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Appropriate volumes of ginger and garlic juice with isopropyl alcohol were used to formulate the hand sanitizer. Antimicrobial activity of these hand sanitizers were determined using 10 clinical bacterial isolates which include: Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Escherichia coli, Vibro cholerae, Klebsiella spp., Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Micrococcus spp, Streptobacillus spp. and Bacillus spp. The analysis was conducted in triplicate using disc diffusion agar method. A tolerance assessment test was carried out on all the hand sanitizers on 300 individuals. All 10 bacterial isolates were sensitive to garlic 25 % and garlic 50 % hand sanitizer expect Micrococcus spp. Bacillus spp. was most sensitive with 13.4 mm zone diameter. The garlic hand sanitizers were more effective and most preferred to the ginger hand sanitizers. It was observed that the blending of isopropyl alcohol with ginger and garlic produced stronger antibacterial effect. The bacteria used in this study were mesophilic bacteria which thrive in the tropics, knowing the fact that SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot survive under high temperature in the tropics, these hand sanitizers having shown antibacterial effects on these mesosphilic bacteria could also be used in vitro for the control of SARS-CoV-2 virus and prevention of a future outbreak. Therefore, more research should be tailored towards discovering other African herbs with antibacterial/antiviral properties which could be used in the production of hand sanitizers for the prevention and control of future viral outbreaks.
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Ogechi et al. (2025) studied this question.