DIY Effective Disinfectant for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Coronavirus

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases. It is zoonotic, a mode of transmission wherein it is transmitted between animals and humans. Known Coronaviruses include Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). However, in December 2019 a new strain was discovered. The virus was officially named by the International Committee of Taxonomy and Viruses (ICTV) as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease itself was officially labeled by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). As of March 14, 2020,  21:45 GMT, Covid-19 reported cases have already reached 156,016 worldwide of which  74,451 people have recovered.

Disinfectant shortage and its solution

During the first few weeks of the discovery of the virus, it was thought that it is hard to transmit it  in hot and humid countries. Most of us living in tropical countries like the Philippines, are worried, but a bit more relaxed in hoarding disinfectant supplies. In the first month of 2020, there was already a shortage of face mask supplies. However, there are still lots of disinfectant supplies in the supermarket shelves. Filipinos being resourceful and innovative, the face mask shortage was easily augmented with homemade face mask. Plenty of patterns and designs were released, from simple cloth repurposing to using luxury branded ribbons to style their face mask. Unfortunately, in March this year, there was an increasing number of COVID-19 positive patients here in our country. In the beginning, there were only Person Under Investigation(PUI) cases but it progressed to Laboratory-Confirmed Cases, thus, the start of disinfectant supplies shortage. To lessen the burden of the “sanitizer shortage” I’m going to share with you one of the formulated substitutes of disinfectant using bleach.

To make a ten parts of surface disinfectant solution, you have to put one glass of liquid bleach like Zonrox in a container first to avoid spillage and slowly add nine glasses of  clean water. From this mixture, you can produce hand sanitizer by mixing one part of the mentioned surface disinfectant solution and nine parts of clean water. In cases wherein there is no liquid bleach available, chlorine powder can be used as substitute, but with different formulation. You can dilute one tablespoon of chlorine powder to two liters of clean water to produce a surface disinfectant solution. Subsequently, if you wish to use chlorine powder as a hand sanitizer, you can mix one tablespoon of chlorine powder to twenty liters of clean water. 

For prevention of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, cleaning of surface dirt followed by disinfection is the best practice measure in households and community settings.

Of course, we also have to remember that even if we were not able to secure disinfectant supplies, it is still helpful to always practice the basic protective measure against the COVID-19 virus. This includes regular hand washing, maintaining social distance of at least one meter or three feet, consciously avoiding to touch the eyes, mouth and nose, and lastly, practice respiratory hygiene.