Namaste everyone.

During this pandemic, what we all need before anything else is preventing infection of the fatal virus. For this, major precautions we all are doing must be washing our hands frequently or using hand sanitizer bought from the market. 

Yesterday, a fantastic news made me realize that our herbs can also be used as weapons in this battle with pandemic. The news was about hand sanitizer manufactured by Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan. The major ingredients used were Ethanol, Glycerol, Hydrogen peroxide and Titepati (Scientific name: Artemisia vulgaris) also known as mugwort which is a beneficial aromatic medicinal herb and can be grown in marginal lands. This plant has a long history of being used by humans for various purposes. This hand sanitizer is made according to the standards of United World Health Organisation. Though it is first trial on hand sanitizer, the manufacturers (professors involved) ensured that the sanitizer is effective enough for sanitisation, not less than sanitizer available on the market.

 One must have thought of a question, why to add Artemisia when it has alcohol? In ordinary sanitizer, 80%alcohol(ethanol), 1.5% glycerine, 0.25% hydrogen peroxide and remaining are some other chemicals. But the Artemisia used Sanitizer has included Artemisia oil(0.12%), that has anti-bacterial property. As we all know, farmers have to work on fields and their hands might contain lots of bacteria. Ordinary sanitizer can kill virus, but it’s not sure that it kills all bacteria too. Most importantly, farmers usually might have many wounds in their hands that might host bacteria. Application of Sanitizer with more alcohol may cause more irritation in wounds and also increases further risks of delay in wound healing. But, Artemisia helps in killing bacteria and makes healing faster. This sanitizer was made mainly for farmers and small agro-marketers. 

Thus, amidst this Corona pandemic everyone of us should not delay on concluding the fact that loving and promoting our flora and fauna is the major urgency of this century. We can conserve our environment for our children only if we start living an eco-friendly life.

Source: janatapati