The difference between sterilization and disinfection

In medicine, sterilization and disinfection are two very important concepts. All health workers should always remember to sterilize and disinfect. First, let's introduce a few common concepts:
Sterilization sterilization: The application of physical and chemical methods to kill all pathogenic microorganisms, non-pathogenic microorganisms and spores.
Disinfection: The application of physical and chemical methods to kill microorganisms requires only non-infectious purposes and does not require all killing.
Sterile germ free: no live bacteria.
Antiseptic antisips: Apply physical and chemical methods to prevent and inhibit microbial growth and reproduction.

To achieve the purpose of sterilization, it is necessary to understand the factors affecting bacterial metabolism and growth. Some physical factors have a great impact on bacteria, such as temperature, dryness, light, microwave, and osmotic pressure. The chemical factors affecting bacteria are mainly a large number of drugs, such as disinfectants, preservatives, chemotherapeutic agents, pH, and the like. There are also some biological factors that have a huge impact on bacteria, such as the common antibiotics antibiotic, phytoncide, bacteriocin, bacteriophage and so on.

Since bacteria are very sensitive to all of the above factors, the following methods are commonly used in veterinary work for sterilization:
1. Flame incineration is used for sterilization of inoculation needles, inoculating rings, test tube mouths, corpses and contaminated materials.
2. Dry hot air sterilization for sterilization of dried glassware.
3. Boiling sterilization is used for disinfection of surgical instruments.
4. Pasteurization is used for the disinfection of foods such as wine, beer and milk.
5, high pressure steam sterilization 6, ultraviolet sterilization 7, microwave sterilization but can not be used for metal equipment.
8, with a variety of chemical disinfectants, such as acid, alkali, heavy metals, oxidants, alcohol, 75%; and chemotherapeutic agents, such as sulfonamides, furans, quinolones, etc. for sterilization.
9, with antibiotics, such as penicillin, streptomycin, tetracycline, erythromycin, kanamycin and other bactericidal inhibition.

All of the above are sterilization and sterilization methods commonly used in veterinary clinics.
Finally, let's talk about bacteriophage bacteriophage. Phage are a type of virus that is parasitic in bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes or spirals. As the name suggests, it kills bacteria. There are two main ways in which bacteriophage can infect bacteria: lysing and lysing. Lysolysis refers to the proliferation of bacteriophage in bacteria and the lysis of bacteria. Such phages are called virulent phage. Lysogen means that the phage integrates its own nucleic acid into the chromosomal DNA of the bacteria and replicates as the bacterial DNA replicates. Such phages are called lysogenic phages. Phage have been widely used to detect unknown bacteria or to classify bacteria.