Yes, definitely. Even during the SARS time, we actually saw it already and now we are seeing a lot of people getting hand eczema. Hand eczema is due to contact with soaps and irritants and even all these sanitisers.
Frequent hand washing leads to eczema. it’s a very slow process. Initially when you wash nothing happens, the more you wash the barrier gets weaker and weaker because of the soap and irritants until one day your barrier just breaks down and you develop eczema.
And if your hands are already dry and cracked and you continue to wash and have contact with the irritants, it is very hard for your skin barrier to recover and the eczema is very persistent.
Unfortunately, when you do develop hand eczema it is important to minimize contact with the irritants because that is the important part of the treatments beside using the topical medications. But of course, it is difficult in these times of COVID-19 to tell people not to wash their hands but ideally, we should try to minimize that if that happens.
