Cleaning , Sanitization and Disinfection in pharmaceutical industry

Cleaning , Sanitization and Disinfection are most commonly interchanged terms by pharmaceutical professionals but all these terms are different with different meanings .

Sanitization

Sanitization must reduce concentration of microorganisms from 1 million to 1000 or 99.9% in 30 seconds according to United states Environment Protection Agency(USEPA) . The Sanitizers will not kill viruses and Fungi but will only reduce the concentration of Bacteria . commonly used sanitizing agent in pharmaceutical industry is Teepol . Teepol used in concentration of 0.01%  . Sanitization agents could be used on drug contact surfaces .

Disinfectants

Disinfectants are chemical agents which must kill 99.999% microorganisms within 5-10 minutes and is intended to kill Fungi , Bacteria and viruses also. Most commonly used Disinfectants used in pharmaceuticals are Dettol , Savlon, Bacillocide, Virosil disinfectants could be used on the drug contact parts but after cleaning validation of contact part with disinfectant as the disinfectant may not react with stainless steel of contact part. Iso propyl alcohol is used in concentration of 70% as an disinfectant .

The United state Environment protection agency lays down regulations for Disinfectants and Sanitizers which must be met to use an substance as a Disinfectant or Sanitizers in Pharmaceuticals .

Disinfectant as well as Sanitizers should be procured with MSDS certificate .

Cleaning

It means removal of visual dirt could be achieved by simply dry mopping the place to be cleaned.