Evaluation of green tea extract as a safe personal hygiene against viral infections

Lee, Yun Ha; Jang, Yo Han; Kim, Young-Seok; Kim, Jinku; Seong, Baik Lin

Control and preventive actions against viral infections in human comprises vaccination, antiviral treatment, and personal hygiene. While vaccination and antiviral drugs are often considered very effective for preventing and controlling viral infections, personal hygiene provides much cost-effective alternatives to preventing such infections [7, 8] . In general, personal hygiene usually involves hand washing with soap or a hand sanitizer, mostly alcohol-based, due to inhibitory activities of alcohol against viruses [9, 10] . However, due to rapid evaporation upon air exposure, a short incubation with alcohol (3-95%) was found ineffective in reducing the viral activity [11] . In addition, there was a concern of fire safety and toxicity for the use of high alcohol content in hand sanitizers [12] . Furthermore, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that alcohol-based hand sanitizer use was a risk factor in long-term care facilities for norovirus [13] . Meanwhile, alternative hand sanitizers based on quaternary ammonium compounds have been used, but their toxicity and environmental concerns have been raised for its use in personal hygiene [14, 15] . Therefore, effective and environmental friendly compounds for sanitizers have been sought for safe human use to prevent microbial infections [16, 17] .