ANALYTICAL PERFORMANCE AND VALIDATION OF HEAD SPACE-GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY-FLAME IONIZATION DETECTOR (HS-GC-FID) METHOD FOR ALCOHOL CONTENT AND EVALUATION OF EFFICIENCY AND POSSIBLE TOXICITY OF HAND SANITIZERS AT THE TIME OF PANDEMIC

World Health Organization and Turkish National Health Authorities advice the public to clean their hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or to wash with soap and water. While the pandemic resulted in stockpiling and shortage of the products, but industry responded quickly, although concerns were raised about the safety and efficacy of these new products. The alcohol content of hand sanitizer product samples that are available in Turkish market were evaluated with head space-gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (HS-GC-FID) to check and verify their safety for consumers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The alcohol content of the hand sanitizers is in a range of 1.2 - 88.2% excluding methanol. The method indicated have satisfactory recovery, detection limits and standard deviations while the alcohol content of most of the products is below the advised limit for hand sanitizers; even some of them contain unwanted methanol impurities. The regulatory bodies should check these products more intensively.