Answer: My-Shield Hand Sanitizer  , Zylast Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer , Clorox Hand Sanitizer Spray , and Germstar Noro are available in the US. I have all 4 of these hand sanitizers, and I like them all.
"Stomach flu" is just a nickname for viral gastroenteritis. It is not related to influenza, the real flu.  For everyday life, vigorous hand washing is good enough to remove most of the germs. However, if you are in a public place and can't get to a sink, I would recommend using a hand sanitizer that has been tested and approved to kill norovirus. I do not recommend using regular 60-65% alcohol hand sanitizer gels such as Purell because they are likely to be ineffective against norovirus1. It has been very difficult to test hand sanitizers and cleaning products on human norovirus because human norovirus has refused to grow in the research lab. Human norovirus loves to attack cells inside people, but does not want to infect human cells in a petri dish. So, products that have been tested on human norovirus have looked at specific features, for example, was the viral capsid protein damaged after treatment with this hand sanitizer? They have never been able to look at the end result, can the norovirus still infect cells after treatment with this hand sanitizer? Most products have been tested on norovirus surrogates. These are similar viruses, such as feline calicivirus and murine norovirus, which are able to infect cells in a petri dish. However, we can't be absolutely certain that a product that kills these surrogates would really kill human norovirus. There is hope, though! Thanks to Dr. Mary Estes, there has been a recent breakthrough in growing norovirus in a lab. So maybe soon products will be able to be tested on the real human norovirus. Until then, all I can do is give my best recommendations based on the data for products killing norovirus surrogates. Here are the hand sanitizers that I have been using that have been tested against norovirus surrogates. There may be other hand sanitizers that kill norovirus but they haven't been tested or won't release the results. I, however, can only recommend a hand sanitizer that HAS been tested and shown to kill a norovirus surrogate AND the company would give me the test information. Some people are also wondering which hand sanitizer kills the Ebola virus? Unfortunately, I don't think that any hand sanitizers have been tested against Ebola. Very few labs are allowed to work with Ebola, and Ebola is not available for efficacy testing in the United States. The CDC recommending using products that claim to kill other non-enveloped viruses (like the difficult to kill norovirus). So, I still recommend my 4 favorite hand sanitizers that kill norovirus. (Clorox Hand Sanitizing Spray, Zylast, My-shield, and GermStar Noro). Does Alcohol kill norovirus?
There are many different norovirus strains and some are more resistant to alcohol than others. Here is a research paper that tested many strains of human norovirus against ethanol and isopropanol. Ethanol worked better than isopropanol. Some strains of norovirus seemed sensitive to ethanol and some strains seemed resistant. These tests did NOT show that after treatment with ethanol, the norovirus could or could not infect a human cell. They were just looking at whether the viral capsid proteins were damaged. Companies that sell alcohol based hand sanitizers usually say that they add other ingredients to make the ethanol more effective. We hope that is true and not just a marketing gimmick. The norovirus surrogate Feline Calicivirus is more resistant to ethanol than the other commonly used surrogate, murine norovirus. My-Shield Hand Sanitizer My-Shield Hand Sanitizer kills the norovirus surrogate murine norovirus AND is the first hand sanitizer that I have ever heard of that kills C. Diff SPORES!!!! Clostridium difficile is a bacteria that causes a horrible intestinal infection that can last for months or years. It is very common in hospitals. If you are on an antibiotic such as clindamycin and step foot into a hospital for any procedure, you are at risk for getting C. diff. (I am not a medical doctor and there are other risk factors for contracting C. diff.) My very healthy 16 year old nephew was on clindamycin and went into the hospital for a few hours for a minor surgical procedure and caught C. diff. He was sick for 1 year. C. diff forms spores that are extremely hard to kill. Most cleaning products won't kill C. diff spores except chlorine bleach. My-shield hand sanitizer has actually been tested and shown to kill 99.99% of C. diff spores in 10 minutes. Here is the C. diff test data that the company sent me. Yes, 10 minutes is kind of long but far better than nothing. If you work at a hospital, you could put it on when you leave and the vast majority of the spores and norovirus should be dead by the time you get home. (Wash your hands when you get home anyway.) This hand sanitizer is fragrance-free, contains no alcohol, and is very gentle on hands. It is a foam composed of four quaternary ammonium compounds (benzalkonium chloride, trimethyoxyl silyl propyl, trihydroxyl silyl ammonia, and polyamino biguanide). I know that there are dozens of hand sanitizers with benzalkonium chloride as the active ingredient, however, benzalkonium chloride does not kill norovirus good enough by itself to be a useful hand sanitizer. However, when combined with the other quats, the My-Shield does a great job. Here is the norovirus surrogate test data that the company gave me. The My-Shield is also advertised to continue to work for several hours after application. I don't rely on that for any hand sanitizer that advertises it. It is always best to wash hands or reapply before eating if you can. Here is the company brochure about it. You can order the My-Shield on Amazon in either a 4-pack of small pocket/purse sized 1.7 ounce bottles or a larger 7-ounce bottle . I've also tested My-Shield myself on my kids' dirty hands. It did very well! You can see my results here. Zylast-- Use Zylast coupon code "StopNorovirus" when checking out at http://www.zylastdirect.com/catalog.php to get 10% off your order. Zylast Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer Zylast Antiseptic 76% ethanol, Water, Polyaminopropyl Biquanide, Panthenol, Hydroxyethyl Ethylcellulose, Farnesol, Peg-12, Dimethicone, and Benzethonium Chloride. Zylast Antiseptic LOTION .2% Benzethonium Chloride, Water, Alcohol Denat., Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Polyaminopropyl Biquanide, Dimethicone, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Benzyl Alcohol, Farnesol, Panthenol, Zinc gluconate, Chlorhexidine Digluconate, Citric Acid, Polyquaternium-10, and Tocopheryl Acetate. Clorox Hand Sanitizing Spray Clorox Hand Sanitizer Spray
The company Germstar® has specifically designed a hand sanitizer that kills norovirus. It is called Germstar Noro
STERIZAR The company Germ-Aside also has a very exciting hand sanitizer called Sterizar Hand Foamer. Unfortunately, it is not available in the US at this time. It is only available in the UK. This hand sanitizer promises not only to kill norovirus but also claims to continue working for 6 hours! I have read their experimental procedures and test results and am very impressed. 6 hours after application, the test subjects who used the hand sanitizer had 99% less bacteria on their hands than the control people who did not use the hand sanitizer. Here is a link to all of their test results. It takes forever to download so be patient. When reading hand sanitizer test results it is important to understand what "log" means. Test results always talk about "log reduction". A log reduction of 5, means that the product kills 99.999% of germs. A log reduction of 4, means that it kills 99.99% of germs. A log reduction of 3 means that it kills 99.9% of germs. A log reduction of 2 means that the product kills 99% of germs. A log reduction of 1 means that the product kills 90% of germs. Without this information, it is difficult to understand the test results.
Does Purell Advanced kill norovirus?I contacted the makers of Purell on March 8, 2012 and Oct. 1, 2014 to see if Purell Advanced was effective against norovirus. They said that they could not provide me with any of that information. This does not mean that Purell Advanced DOESN't kill norovirus, it just means that they either haven't tested it or won't/can't release the results of the test. However, if you look at my experimental results comparing Purell Advanced to Zylast, you will see that Zylast does so much better.
Do Wet Ones Antibacterial wipes kill norovirus?Internet rumors say that Wet Ones Anti-Bacterial Wipes
If anyone knows of another hand sanitizer for which there is proof that it kills rotavirus and norovirus, please let me know. phd.annie at gmail.com Is it safe to put hand sanitizer on a child who sucks his/her thumb? Many people wonder if it is okay to put hand sanitizer on the hands of a child who sucks his/her thumb. Most hand sanitizers are made with ethyl alcohol (ethanol). That is the same alcohol that people drink in beer and wine. So, ingesting a small amount of ethanol is unlikely to hurt anyone. I called the Ohio poison control center about this on March 13, 2012 and the nurse told me that it was perfectly safe for a child to eat the tiny bit of ethanol based hand sanitizer that was on his/her hand. I put alcohol hand sanitizer on my daughter and try to make her wait until her hands are dry before she sucks her thumb. I can't vouch for the safety of other ingredients that may be in your particular hand sanitizer or of all the other types of hand sanitizers. However, such tiny amounts probably aren't harmful. I am not proud of this but when my youngest son was 17 months old, he ate a puff of my hair mousse, a finger full of black craft paint, desitin, a mouthful of dryer lint, and one ladybug. I called poison control each time and they said none of it would be a problem since he only ate tiny amounts. My son never got sick and was fine. --Annie Pryor, Ph.D.
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3044752/ 2. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18586970 http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/30/disinfectant.superbugs/ 3.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22293670 4.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22897744
|
. The company told me that the lotion has NOT BEEN tested for its ability to kill norovirus and the ingredients are different. So I recommend buying Zylast Antiseptic and NOT Zylast lotion. I 
was tested and shown to kill 99.3% of the norovirus surrogate Feline Calicivirus. 
on amazon and get more for your money. 
kill norovirus. However, this is unproven. I contacted the Playtex® company (on January 8, 2009) who makes Wet Ones® Antibacterial wipes, and they told me that their wipes have not been tested for their ability to kill norovirus or rotavirus. The active ingredient, Benzethonium Chloride HAS recently been tested for its ability to kill norovirus and it DID NOT KILL NOROVIRUS.3 This is confusing though, because benzethonium chloride is one of the ingredients in Zylast which does a great job killing norovirus. I suspect it is the combination of the alcohol and the benzethonium chloride in Zylast that makes it good at killing norovirus. I am not sure, though. There is a related compound called benzalkonium chloride which has been shown to kill norovirus in ONE research paper but it is not contained in these wipes.4 Benzalkonium chloride is contained in many foaming hand sanitizers such as Germ-X foaming hand sanitizer and Pampers Kandoo kids hand sanitizer. However, in the research paper, it took 2 hours for the benzalkonium chloride to kill norovirus so it is very unlikely that the smaller amount contained in these hand sanitizers would kill norovirus. 
