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Monday, 9 February 2015

What is the difference between Disinfectant, Antiseptic and Sanitizer?

Dear all, these terms are commonly used in pharmaceuticals and food industries.  When someone ask about the difference we are not able to tell the difference between these terms as we use these terms (disinfectants and sanitizers) interchangeably. But what is the difference between these terms? Here I am explaining the difference between these terms.

Disinfectants: Disinfectants are the antimicrobial agent that are used on the inanimate (non-living) objects to kill the microbes. We can't apply disinfectant on the living tissues. Depending upon their spectrum disinfectants are mainly classified in to three different levels.
(a) Low level disinfectants
(b) Intermediate level disinfectants 
(c) High level disinfectants

(a) Low level disinfectants: These are those disinfectants which are used to reduce or kill microbial population. Their efficacy is low as compared to other level, it means their spectrum is low.
(b) Intermediate level disinfectants: These are those disinfectants which are used to kill microbial population. They have broad spectrum as compared to low level disinfectants means they are able to kill wide range of microbes but not necessarily kill the bacterial or fungal spores. 
(c) High level disinfectants: These are those disinfectants which are used to kill broad range of microorganisms. They are broad spectrum disinfectants and can kill bacterial and fungal spores. But for spores there is special class of disinfectants which claim for sporocidal activity. During purchase we need to check whether disinfectant is sporocidal or not as per requirement.

Antiseptic: Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances which are used to kill or reduce the microbial contamination on living tissues. These are used on living tissues to reduce the chance of infection.

Sanitizers: Sanitizers are the agents that are used to reduce the microbial population to a certain level which is safe for humans. Basically sanitizers are used in the food industries to reduce the microbial or germs population without affecting the quality of the manufactured product. 

Thanks and have a great day :)

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