Hi all,

I'm a little bit confused about benzalkonium chloride. I know that it's used in disinfectants/hand cleaners to kill viruses but reading the ingredient list on the back of these products has got me questioning how much of this is needed to kill viruses - on the ingredients it states the amount of benzalkonium chloride per 100g, which varies on all the products I looked at today. A trusted dettol cleaning spray I use says it has 0.07g of benzalkonium chloride per 100g - seems pretty low in comparison to other branded wipes which had 0.5g. (I initially thought that the liquid spray would be stronger than wipes.)

So what is the 'safe' amount which will protect us from viruses? Should I be worried that my fave dettol spray is quite low in the killer ingredient?

Another question - would it be recommendable to use anti-viral surface wipes as hand wipes before eating. They would be less embarrassing to use in public!


Thanks.