It's on nearly every desk in your office building. The checkout lanes at the grocery store. At some churches, it's even become part of the Holy Communion ritual.

Hand sanitizer, thanks to swine flu worries of 2009, is everywhere. And that's good news for St. Louis area-based Vi-Jon Inc., maker of Germ-X.

Vi-Jon is producing nearly 27,000 gallons of hand sanitizer a day, more than three times the amount compared with last year at this time. The company is on track to produce 10 million gallons this year — a record, officials say.

"I've got a bottle in the living room, one in the bathroom and one in the bedroom," said Cordelia Florian, 61, at a Walgreens in the Central West End. She's trying to keep herself and her 95-year-old live-in cousin from getting sick. "So far, we've been totally blessed and healthy."

To keep up with demand, Vi-Jon workers at the Page Avenue plant in Vinita Park are working overtime.

They wear goggles and hairnets along the production line as green and blue capped bottles of the gel whiz by. Production — pumping batches of the sanitizer from giant tanks to lines where it is bottled, capped, labeled and boxed — has increased to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Vi-Jon has 350 workers at the plant. Along with hand sanitizer, the company makes body washes, deodorants, lotions, mouth washes, shampoos and soaps. It is primarily a private-label manufacturer for national retailer brands, but it also develops and markets its own brands, such as Germ-X.

For many people these days, a bottle of hand sanitizer acts as the H1N1-era welcome mat. But instead of mud-free shoes, we're worried about germ-free hands.

Earlier this year, the American Red Cross, in partnership with Vi-Jon, distributed 10,000 free Germ-X samples at select MetroLink stations to promote wellness.

St. Charles schools have tripled the amount of hand sanitizer available in their buildings.

Russell Leary, director of facilities for the school district, said that after the school year began, officials identified areas of schools where more wall dispensers of hand sanitizer were needed. They now have nearly 200 dispensers throughout the schools.

"It's more awareness than anything," Leary said. "The more the students see it, the more the kids understand this is important. And they have used it."

Refills of hand sanitizer through the school district's distributor now take about two weeks. It used to just be a few days, Leary said.

In the sanctuary at St. Paul Catholic Church in Fenton, a large bottle of Germ-X sits on the creedance table in the front of the church. Monsignor Michael Dieckmann, the pastor, bought it in September for priests and deacons to use before distributing Holy Communion bread and wine.

"People seem to appreciate it," Dieckmann said. "I'm trying to make sure they know that they are protected and we have their welfare at heart, both spiritually and physically."

Keeping hands clean is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of infection and illness, and if soap and clean water are not available, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are fast-acting and significantly reduce the number of germs on skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hand sanitizers are helpful in protecting yourself from catching the flu, including H1N1, but the virus also can spread through the air, said Dr. Keith Woeltje, an infectious disease expert at Washington University.

It would be difficult for bacteria or viruses to become resistant to hand sanitizers, so there is really not a concern about overuse, Woeltje said.

About $150 million worth of hand sanitizers were sold in the U.S. last year, according to a report this month in Fortune magazine. Purell, by Johnson & Johnson, has the biggest share of the market with about 30 percent of consumer sales. But the magazine noted that Vi-Jon sells about as much hand sanitizer as Purell when its Germ-X brand and the store brands it manufactures are combined.

Besides cold and flu season, back-to-school is usually one of the busiest times of the year for Vi-Jon's production of hand sanitizers, an item often found on supply lists. When the flu season hit earlier than expected this fall just after school started, it was a double boost in demand for Vi-Jon. The company, which is privately held, declined to release sales information.

In the past, outbreaks of MRSA, or drug-resistant staph infections, and the bird flu panic a few years ago also boosted hand sanitizer sales for Vi-Jon.

But not like this. Typically, an outbreak will bump up sales in hand sanitizer for a few weeks, but with H1N1 it has been three months of solid increases, said Kristin Ebert, vice president of marketing for Vi-Jon. The company expects the increase in demand to continue through the beginning of the new year.

"People are using it more often, creating a habit," Ebert said.