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Your hand sanitizer, you, and the flu (and most other diseases)
Rub your hands all you want with your favorite hand sanitizer, but it’s not going to be much help if you’re around someone who is exhaling millions of flu virus particles when they breathe, talk, sneeze, or cough.
The influenza virus is wreaking havoc across the globe as you read this. In some places the situation is worse than others, often complicated by access to healthcare, including vaccinations.
First line of defense
Your skin, the largest organ in your body, is your body’s first line of defense. It protects you by its seamless encapsulation of your internal organs thanks to three main layers. Under normal and healthy circumstances, the outermost layer is also home to microorganisms that are beneficial to your well-being — as long as they stay on the outermost surface.
Just as beneficial microorganisms are able to thrive and multiply on the outermost layer of your skin, so are species that are not particularly the friendly variety. Viruses, however, while capable of parking themselves on the outer layer of skin can’t multiply on their own — they lack the necessary machinery. To multiply, they need to enter a living cell and hijack the cell’s machinery to make more copies of itself. Then, off these newly minted virus particles go, to wreak…
