--- title: Fighting COVID-19 May be Increasing Accidental Poisonings description: For the January-March period, calls to poison-control centers regarding cleaners and disinfectants grew 20.4% from 2019 to 2020 in the U.S. canonical: https://time.com/5824316/coronavirus-disinfectant-poisoning/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-04-20T18:49:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:10.886Z article:section: Health og:title: As Disinfectant Use Soars to Fight COVID-19, So Do Accidental Poisonings og:description: The prevention causes its own ills og:url: https://time.com/5824316/coronavirus-disinfectant-poisoning/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb672f1e01601656/698a0d18096a94ba4b6a80ad/Disinfectants.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5098 og:image:height: 2868 og:image:alt: Too much of a good thing can be dangerous og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: As Disinfectant Use Soars to Fight COVID-19, So Do Accidental Poisonings twitter:description: The prevention causes its own ills twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb672f1e01601656/698a0d18096a94ba4b6a80ad/Disinfectants.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # As Disinfectant Use Soars to Fight Coronavirus, So Do Accidental Poisonings > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: FAQ: Do Cleaning Products Kill the COVID-19 Virus? [Watch (HLS stream): FAQ: Do Cleaning Products Kill the COVID-19 Virus?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/cdSLPJf3.m3u8) (0:51)  _Published 2020-04-13. Probably, as long as you use them right._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Apr 20, 2020 6:49 PM UTC  Too much of a good thing can be dangerous Too much of a good thing can be dangerous Picture Alliance via Getty Image;(c) dpa-Zentralbild  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Apr 20, 2020 6:49 PM UTC Disinfectants and other cleaning supplies wouldn’t be any use at all if they weren’t good at killing things like viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. But the products can present similar toxic dangers to the people who handle them, and with the use of cleaning and disinfecting supplies soaring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, so too, according to a study just published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s [_Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report_](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6916e1.htm?s%5Fcid=mm6916e1%5Fe&deliveryName=USCDC%5F921-DM26275), are calls to poison control centers. A team of CDC investigators, using data from the National Poison Data System (NPDS), the American Association of Poison Control Centers, and the CDC itself, compared reports of poisonings from disinfectants such as hand sanitizers or cleaning supplies such as bleach in the three-month window from January through March 2020, to the same period in 2019 and 2018\. The results were striking. Overall the poison centers received a total of 45,550 calls in that window in 2020\. That was a 20.4% increase over the same period in 2019 and a 16.4% increase compared to 2018. As in 2018 and 2019, the largest share of the poisonings in 2020 occurred among children five years old and below: 35.7% of calls for incidents involving cleaners and 46.9% for disinfectants were in regards to this age group. Of all means of ingestion, inhalation of fumes represented the largest increase in exposure routes, jumping 35.3% for all forms of cleaners and a whopping 108.8% for disinfectants specifically. The report included a pair of case studies showing two typical poisoning scenarios. The first involved a woman who had listened to news reports advising that all groceries be thoroughly cleaned before they are eaten. She filled her sink with hot water, a 10% bleach solution, and vinegar, and left her produce to soak in it. While unloading the rest of her groceries she noticed a chlorine-like smell, developed difficulty breathing, began coughing and wheezing, and called 911\. Taken to an emergency room, she recovered with oxygen and bronchodilators. The second case involved a preschool child who ingested an unknown amount of hand sanitizer from a 64-oz. bottle that was left out on a kitchen table. She became dizzy, fell and struck her head, and then was taken to an emergency room where her blood-alcohol level was found to be nearly 3.5 times the legal limit for driving under the influence. The child spent two nights in the hospital—one of them in the pediatric intensive care unit—and then went home. The authors of the paper stress that there are limitations to their findings. For one thing, they write, “data on the direct attribution of these exposures to treat COVID-19 are not available in the NPDS.” In theory, at least, the increase in poisonings could be purely coincidental. On the other hand, they wrote, the NPDS data likely is an underestimate of the total number of poisonings, since not all such incidents are reported. Either way, the CDC recommends five steps to minimize the poisoning risk: Follow the directions on product labels; don’t mix chemicals; wear protective gear like gloves; use all products in a well-ventilated area; and store chemicals out of the reach of kids. 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