In this video, we're going to talk about the hierarchy of the microbial growth control terminology that we introduced in our last lesson video. And so notice on the left over here we're showing you a pyramid, and these terms over here are focused on killing microbes or the elimination of microbes. And notice that decontamination is the very first term towards the top of this pyramid, and that's because recall decontamination is a very broad or general term, which is why it's up here towards the top of our pyramid showing that it is a broad term. And it refers to the reduction of pathogens to a safe level.
Next, what we have is sanitization, which is really a form of decontamination, but it is specifically going to allow for meeting public health standards and giving the appearance of the object being clean. And so because it's meeting public health standards, it is going to be somewhat of a more specific term than decontamination is, and so that's why it's given a more narrow region of the pyramid here because it's a more specific term.
And then, next what we have is disinfection, which recall disinfection is going to eliminate most pathogens. However, it is possible for some pathogens to survive. And so notice that most pathogens are being eliminated or killed here, but some pathogens like this little guy over here may still survive after disinfection.
And then the last term that we have here in this pyramid is sterilization. And sterilization is going to eliminate all pathogens, all microbes, except for prions. That's the only exception there. But everything else is going to be completely eliminated through sterilization techniques. And so you can see that the percentage of microbes that survive is actually decreasing as we go from top to bottom in this pyramid. And so, notice that with sterilization, because it's towards the bottom here, there's going to be a very small percentage of microbes surviving, practically 0% surviving, through sterilization.
Then notice that off to the right, what we have is processes that delay microbial growth. And so when we talk instead of killing microbes, there's also the ability to delay the growth of those microbes. And really, that is what preservation techniques are going to do. Instead of actually killing microbes, preservation techniques are going to delay the growth of microbes.
And so, hopefully this image here helps with your understanding of these microbial growth control terminology. And, we'll be able to get some practice and learn more about these terms, and different microbial growth control procedures as we move forward. So I'll see you all in our next video.
