COVID-19 pandemic has almost made hand sanitization a ritual resulting in a steep increase in the frequency of hand sanitization and an unprecedented surge in demand for hand sanitizers. In fact, several governments had to ration hand sanitizers in the retail outlets and over the counter chemist shops. Additionally, Indian government has put a cap on the prices of hand sanitizers. Currently, large sections of global and Indian population are grappling under financial crises. Therefore, mandatory hand sanitization has made an unwelcoming, yet unavoidable addition to the already-hard-to-maintain-grocery-list. Here, we have compared the anti-microbial efficacy of Patanjali Hand Sanitizer (PHS), developed and marketed by Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. (an India-based food and herbal medicine company) with one of the topmost hand sanitizers currently used under clinical set-ups. PHS has anti-microbial efficacy comparable to that of the standard hand sanitizer. Besides, disc diffusion and time-dependent thumb print assays showed that PHS has longer retentivity on the applied surfaces, suggesting lesser consumption of the sanitizer and concomitant relaxation on the monthly grocery budget. Observed anti-bacterial potency of PHS is attributed to the disruption of bacterial cell membrane, as employed by alcohol-based hand sanitizers. A rough estimation revealed that PHS is ~ 4.3 times cost effective than the standard hand sanitizer used as the positive control in this study. Taken together, PHS is a suitable alternative for existing hand sanitizers available in the market that can relax the demand–supply strain and soften significantly the burden of monthly expenditure on hand sanitizers.

COVID-19大流行几乎使洗手液成为一种习惯，导致洗手液的频率急剧增加，对洗手液的需求空前增加。实际上，一些政府不得不在零售店和柜台药店配给洗手液。此外，印度政府对洗手液的价格设置了上限。当前，全球和印度人口中有很大一部分正在努力应对金融危机。因此，强制性的手部消毒对已经难以维持的杂货清单构成了不受欢迎但不可避免的补充。在这里，我们比较了Patanjali Ayurved Ltd开发和销售的Patanjali洗手液（PHS）的抗菌功效。（一家总部位于印度的食品和草药公司）拥有目前在临床环境中使用的最顶级的洗手液之一。PHS的抗菌功效可与标准洗手液媲美。此外，椎间盘扩散和随时间变化的拇指指纹分析表明，PHS在所施加的表面上具有更长的保持性，这表明减少了消毒剂的消耗，并伴随了每月食品杂货预算的减少。如基于酒精的洗手液所使用的，所观察到的PHS的抗菌效力归因于细菌细胞膜的破坏。粗略估计显示，PHS的成本是本研究中用作阳性对照的标准洗手液的4.3倍。在一起