Aside from washing with soap and water, hand sanitizer gel has become an item in demand (for those who may have access to it) since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Water-alcohol gel: “waterless hand hygiene”.
The spread of the H1N1 influenza virus in the United States in 2009 had already popularized the use of antibacterial gel. They were all over the place, in purses, pockets, public offices. At the time, there was no global discussion of the origin of its invention.
Now when the global impact of Covid-19 is much greater, one name has become a hashtag and a social media trend: Lupe Hernandez: #LupeHernandez.
A piece on the British newspaper The Guardian came out of the archives. Laura Barton wrote the piece on May 13, 2012. Lupe Hernandez invented the hand sanitizer gel in 1966. She was a nurse student in Bakersfield, California, some 180 kilometers to the north of Los Angeles.
According to Barton’s report, it occurred to Hernandez that alcohol turned into a gel could be used to clean hands when health care workers did not have access to water and soap to wash them. The story goes that Hernandez called a inventions hotline she had seen on television and set about her patent registration.
As Marcos Hassan reports for Remezcla, there is almost nothing else published about Lupe Hernández. So far, no more data is known about her, her origin, the process of her invention, or if she is still alive. “Unsurprisingly, this is yet another case of a Latinx being written out of history, and it’s refreshing to see her get a bit of recognition, albeit late”, Hassan writes.
Such recognition has spread on social networks in recent days, as the new coronavirus pandemic has grown rapidly. Especially in the United States, where not only is the growth in diagnosed cases accelerating, but where there has also been an increase in Hispanic/Latinx roots claim and advocacy in response to the Donald Trump administration.
Did you know hand sanitizer was invited by a Latina?! #LupeHernandez https://t.co/kDxX4BsSJD
— J. Carlos Rico (@JCarlos_Rico) March 20, 2020
Our health is now incredibly dependent on a sanitation product created by an amazing nurse. This is still Women's History Month and we owe immense gratitude to Lupe Hernandez. #WHM2020 https://t.co/i1hJ5jcEPT
— Women's March (@womensmarch) March 18, 2020
When Laura Darton wrote the article for The Guardian, the market for antibacterial hand gel was worth millions of dollars and its value was increasing. Sales were going up.
She cites a report by market research firm Nielsen that said that as of October 2009, the year of the H1N1 flu outbreak, sales of the product Lupe Hernandez invented had risen 70.5% from the previous year: that it $118 million. The peak of sales was in May of that year (63.1%), “as news of H1N1 outbreaks were all over the news.”
The industrial research company Ibis World published new records on production, as of March 2020, due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic: the growth of hand sanitizer gel manufacturing in the United States went from 1.9% to 16.6% so far in 2020, due to the rapid increase in demand. Between 2015 and now, the average growth of the hand sanitizer gel industry had been 3.9%.
It will continue to grow thereafter.
“Large manufacturers in this industry, such as Gojo Industries, have announced plans to increase production in response to rapidly increasing demand. Manufacturers are likely to prioritize supplies for institutional customers, particularly healthcare providers, over retail locations,” the report says.