Lubbock doctor suggests including hand sanitizer in school supplies

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - With kids back in the classroom, homework is not the only thing they may bring home from school.

Back-to-school bugs begin to circulate this time of year; kids make new friends, reunite with old ones, use the same school supplies or share lunch treats.

Dr. Brian Payne, the chief medical officer at the Children’s Hospital at UMC, stated the best way parents can combat these germs is to teach good hygiene at home. They can also send them to school with a little hand sanitizer.

“I think having a hand sanitizer in their pocket, in their backpack, or wherever they’re allowed to have it; some of them even can just keep some in their drawer if they if it’s their own same consistent desk,” Payne said. “I think that these things begin at home, though, teaching your child how to wash their hands before their meals, doing, you know, some hand sanitizing, you’re training them in their own home. That plays into the bigger, you know, scheme whenever they’re at school as well.”

Payne also encouraged teachers to keep a bottle of hand sanitizer for their students to use.

If soap and water are not available, hand sanitizer can help keep kids safe from viruses that are commonly exchanged when kids return to the classroom, Payne stated.

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