Kids Getting Drunk With Hand Sanitizer: Study

It is time for alert if your child use hand sanitizer. Yes, a six-year-old Nhaijah Russeell was reported to have swallowed about four squirts of it at school and she liked it as the taste was like a strawberry flavor.

Well, there is more shocking to this. She had to visit emergency room. Her words were slurring and she was unable to walk. Hand sanitizer contains alcohol and she drank enough of it to make her dangerously drunk.

Georgia Poison Center has come up with a new analysis and it reveals there have been 400 percent increase in calls of children younger than 12 for the same reason.

Center director Dr. Gaylord Lopez said small children are using these products more and some of them also land in emergency rooms.

Hand sanitizer contains 45 to 95 percentages of alcohol and even small amount of it can cause alcohol poisoning to kids.

It is to take note that wine and beer contains about 12 and 5 percentages alcohol respectively.

Doctors said the blood-alcohol level of Nhaijah was twice the level considered to be leglly drunk in an adult. Alcohol poisoning causes vomiting, confusion and drowsiness. A child can also stop breathing in severe cases.

In 2014 a total of 16,117 kid cases were reported to the poison control centers. In 2010 the figure was 3,116. Currently it is assumed the number has been gone much higher.