Mind safety of sanitisers

Chemical disinfectants are substances used to control, prevent or destroy harmful microbes.

Chemicals and procedures which kill spores are lethal to less hardy cells, including in human, animal and plant tissues.

Many places frequently use chemical disinfectants to eradicate the disease-causing microbes on the floor, walls and furniture.  But these could be hazardous to workers if not properly handled.

Some of them are flammable and explosive. They may react with incompatible chemicals violently and generate toxic gases. And all are, by their very nature, potentially harmful or toxic to living organisms. They could be harmful to humans if they enter the body.

Hazardous and harmful

Disinfectants are effective and safe if handled well. If misused, they can be hazardous and harmful to workers. They have levels of heat, radiation, desiccation, acidity, alkalinity and other chemical and physical conditions that rapidly kill other forms of life.

The most widely used sporicides are chlorine (as in hypochlorite solutions or “bleach”) and formaldehyde, with some use being made of hydrogen peroxide and other oxidising agents, or glutaraldehyde.

At the concentrations necessary to be effective, these are hazardous to human health if handled incorrectly. Precautions, therefore, should be taken not to get them on the skin or in the eyes or, especially with the aldehydes, inhale them. Some are irritating to the skin, eyes and the respiratory system.

The highly corrosive disinfectants could inflict serious damage if they come into contact with the skin or eyes and the airborne ones cause respiratory problems if used in poorly ventilated areas. When selecting a disinfectant for a particular use, user should take into consideration the hazardous properties of the chemical disinfectant.

Veronica Onjoro is a PhD student at Mount Kenya University, Mombasa. [email protected].