Handsanitizer
Reuters

One invention that everyone in the world should be thankful of the Latino community is hand sanitizer. Especially right now as it is one of the best weapons against COVID-19 and other harmful bacteria.

As COVID-19 became a pandemic around the world, people began scrambling for hand sanitizer in stores worldwide. In fact, in just a day or two many outlets all over the world posted that they do not have hand sanitizer anymore.

It has now become one of humanity's best weapons against the invisible, infectious, and rather deadly illness. Meanwhile, while everyone is looking and scambling for hand sanitizer, they forgot to ask themselves the most common question; who invented it?

A Latina woman who was a nursing student in California in 1966 named Lupe Hernandez was the one who invented hand sanitizer.

Hernandez came up with this invention when she thought about a gel form of rubbing alcohol. She thought that by having a gel form of alcohol or a "hand sanitizer" it would make it possible for people to have their hands cleaned even without the use of soap and water.

She knew that she was on to something great and that her invention would be recognized later on, so what she did was reach out to an invention hotline and patented her invention.

Hand sanitizer is very important most especially these days where we are facing a global health crisis and the best weapon everyone has aside from social distancing is to have proper hygiene and that added, and needed, safeguard against germs is Lupe's hand sanitizer.

If you are healthy or not you need to frequently apply hand sanitizer most especially if you touched highly-touched surfaces like counters, doorknobs, faucets, tables, and more. This is also best used when you go to a pharmacy where the counters are frequently touched as well as grocery stores, and pretty much anywhere you find yourself.

A boost in the popularity of hand sanitizer came when the world was hit by H1N1 back in 2009. That was also the time when it became part of the healthy living industry.

The H1N1 outbreak in 2009 led to the demand for hand sanitizers and it was soon in high demand from consumers.

Since then the market value of hand sanitizer has spiked. In fact, many stores at present have declared in almost all parts of the world that their hand sanitizers were all sold out.

Due to COVID-19, people go to different stores to buy hand sanitizer in bulk as a part of the ever popular panic buying, to make sure that they have enough supplies to protect themselves and not to be infected by the virus.

It is no wonder why the market value of hand sanitizer in 2018 reached $2.6 billion and this is higher compared to its value in 2002 where it was estimated to be around $28 million and $80 million in 2006. In the midst of the viral and infectious disease outbreak, hand sanitizer is now part of the basic human commodities.

Without the invention of Lupe Hernandez, many are expected to die because of the infectious and deadly virus.

This Latina should be thanked and applauded because without her invention, many more would suffer and millions would have died since the H1N1 outbreak.

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