Source: 7 News Seven people have died from drinking hand sanitiser after the party they were at ran out of alcohol, according to reports out of Russia. It’s understood some nine people began drinking the antiseptic wash, which is 69 per cent methanol. Two men aged 27 and 59, as well as a 41-year-old woman were the first to die. Six others were urgently flown by a medical evacuation aircraft to a hospital in the city of Yakutsk. Sadly, another four did not survive, while two are currently fighting for life in hospital. “The poisoning took place as a result of drinking sanitiser,” the regional state prosecutor said. Authorities in Russia are again pleading with locals to refrain from drinking the hand sanitiser.
Not really. Usually, hand sanitizer is diluted ethanol alcohol and edible. In my country, inedible hand sanitizer is illegal as hand sanitizer may be used to sterilize kitchen utensils and someone may pick up food with bare hand.
U mean in Russia? I think it's not a harmful if it's taken in really small amount like after using it to sterilize kitchen or sterilize hands before picking up food. But they were gulping the whole thing and I'm like "that ain't it"
I'm not from Russia. Anyhow, if you look at the label of hand sanitizers in a drug store in your neighborhood, you will see it's made of ethanol (aka ethyl alcohol), not methanol (aka methyl alcohol). Methanol may be also ingested by mean of inhaling as alcohol is evaporable. Continuous ingestion of small amount of methanol can result dizziness and indigestion. Methanol is more irritable to skin too. To dilute and gulp down bottled ethanol, such as wound sterilizer, likely isn't wild for Russian standard.
Disinfectants used to be sold as household cleaning products or medical products and usually manufactured by companies in such fields of expertise. Such companies are highly aware of health safety and always use ethanol. Due to COVID, hand sanitizer become a hot product and everyone wanna sell hand sanitizers which may lead to 2 following problems - ethanol shortage - unknowledgeable manufacturers. Imagine a painting solvent company start manufacturing hand sanitizer.
