mumbai a 43yearold man on medication for alcohol dependence got an acute reaction from using hand sanitiser and landed in an andheri hospital with an elevated heart rate the incident even led to his wife assuming that he had lost his three years of sobrietythe man was visiting a bank where he had to apply the sanitiser several times as was mandated due to the covid19 pandemic soon he started feeling uneasy and nauseous and developed redness on his face and chest he was rushed to the andheri hospital with tachycardia a condition where the heart beats more than 100 times per minute his heart rate was 102103 beats when he reached the hospital the doctors treated him with an antiallergic and carried out ecg his symptoms subsided in an houra call by the hospital to the patients treating psychiatrist dr avinash de sousa settled that the man who has been on treatment for alcohol dependence for three years had suffered from alcoholdisulfiram reaction that was triggered by the alcoholbased sanitiserthis unusual case from the city was published in the oxford journal alcohol and alcoholisms july issue and has even triggered a discussion on whether the reaction was caused by inhalation or absorption of the ethanol in the sanitiserdr de sousa who is a research assistant with the civicrun sion hospital said that the drug disulfiram has been used to treat alcohol abuse since the past six decades but a reaction after sanitiser use was rarely seen the drug deters one from drinking by triggering very unpleasant side effects the moment he has even little alcohol the drug basically interferes with the metabolism of alcohol and the side effects kill the craving for a drink he said adding that the patient has been sober for three years after battling a drinking problem for a decadeafter the incident the man has been taken off the medication we can only hope he wouldnt go back to drinking again dr de sousa saidthe case even led to an experiment by a ukbased researcher to see if inhalation or absorption through the skin was the cause for the reaction his experiment showed that the reaction would have been due to inhalation of ethanol vapour rather than absorption through the skindr nilesh shah who heads the psychiatry department at sion hospital said patients on disulfiram are routinely told to stay away from alcoholbased deodorants shaving lotions or even food items that have an alcohol base now we have to add sanitisers to that list hand sanitizers contain 6070 alcohol he addedwatch mumbai alcohol in sanitiser lands sober man on medication in hospital