CHARDON, Ohio — We’re currently in the midst of the longest flu season in more than a decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Washing your hands is always the best way to prevent germs from spreading, but now a local company is taking it a step further.
Door handles, desks, keyboards, are faucet handles are some of the items often thought of when thinking of surfaces that collect a lot of germs, but if you're not able to get to a sink, hand sanitizer is the next best option.
That sanitizer should contain at least 60% alcohol. The CDC says sanitizers with that percentage of alcohol or higher are more effective at killing germs.
And now, OpenClean Technologies based in Chardon has created what they call the world's first hand-sanitizing door handles.
This is how it works: a cartridge is put in the center of a hollow door handle and whenever the paddle on that cartridge is pushed, it releases the sanitizer.
The company says the device can be used with existing door handles or can replace them, and encourages people to use sanitizer regularly by putting it somewhere they can't avoid.
OpenClean says the rate of people using hand sanitizer rose from 24% to 77% during a trial at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore.
