Knowledge
IITians Volunteer to Make Skin-Friendly Sanitizers to Fight Corona
In a unique initiative, IITs step in to help the nation with the shortage of Hand sanitizers. IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee are making and distributing high quality, skin-friendly sanitizer.
COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to work on our personal hygiene more than ever before. To combat the scarcity of hand sanitizers across India, two of our premier IITs centres (Roorkee and Guwahati) have taken a stand to contribute to the supply.
IIT Guwahati was at the forefront fighting the pandemic since the initial days of the outbreak by producing at least 5000 bottles of hand sanitizers and other protective gears for the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital and the Assam government. This initiative truly helped the local government keep the supply of hand sanitizer active throughout the state.
Another similar story is coming from IIT Roorkee where two students have taken up the responsibility to prepare more than 150 litres of herbal hand sanitizer. The task of distributing the sanitizer has been taken up by Heal-agnostics Innovations Pvt. Ltd, a startup based out of IIT Roorkee with the support of Dr. Indranil Lahiri, Dr. Debrupa Lahiri, and the administration.
The duo Siddharth Sharma, a research scholar of Nanotechnology, and Vaibhav Jain, a research scholar at the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, have formulated the sanitizer with 80% isopropanol/ethanol.
This special sanitizer contains anti-fungal, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory herbal ingredients adding to its protective and moisturizing features. Standards prescribed by the WHO are strictly followed during its production.
"In view of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative to maintain basic hygiene practices since there is no specific treatment or vaccine for the disease. This IIT Roorkee-incubated product will be useful to the entire community by promoting basic hygiene," said Mr. Sharma.
We appreciate these initiatives by IIT-Roorkee and IIT-Guwahati as our country strives hard to keep the rapid spread of the virus at bay.