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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ASEPTIC AND STERILE

Aseptic and sterile go hand in hand. The common point between the two terms is that
they are both techniques that strive to get rid of microscopic organisms that can be harmful and
risk the safety of an environment, a liquid, a wound or a tool among other things. To truly get the
specific characteristics of the two and how they can work together, it's essential to understand
what each word means.
Aseptic is any surface, object, product, or environment that has been treated such that it is
free of contamination. Bacteria, viruses, or other harmful living organisms cannot survive or
reproduce. Aseptic processing doesn’t create a sterile condition; it only maintains sterility.
Sterile on the other hand, is a product that is completely free of microscopic organisms.
While sterile means the complete absence of bacteria, viruses, and fungi along with spores, it
doesn’t distinguish between specific pathogens. A sterilization technique aims to rid an
environment of all living microorganisms.
Aseptic means something has been made contamination-free, that it will not reproduce or
create any kind of harmful living microorganisms (bacteria, viruses and others). Sterile describes
a product that is entirely free of all germs. Basically, one is the removal of anything that could
contaminate an area, whereas the other doesn't discriminate bacteria or germs and has none at all.
What it is in more practical terms is that someone will want aseptic conditions if they need to
keep a tool, a room or any product free of contamination- not make it sterile, but just keep and
uphold the product to a standard that won't duplicate bacteria or create more viruses. The aseptic
processing technique will maintain a product safe, for example in food processing with a cold
chain.
In the sterilized technique, every bacteria, harmful or helpful, is meant to be destroyed.
This technique is used to reach an environment free of all living microorganisms, for example
with the tools used for a surgical operation that cannot afford to have any kind of bacteria
reaching an open wound and being a safety and health hazard.
The technique to reach aseptic conditions is more specific, rigorous, detailed and thus
complex. It requires knowing which viruses or bacteria are harmful to the product at hand, and
how to remove them while keeping helpful microorganisms intact. Sterilizing can be done in
many different ways that are more accessible since it has no need to preserve any living
organisms, and is more "brutal". Because of its radical nature, sterilized conditions are often
aimed at medical tools and not reproduced on a bigger scale. Aseptic processing conditions
demand wider sets of hygienic rules whose goals are to limit the risks of infections in an
environment that is impossible to sterilize entirely (for example, a hospital waiting room).
REFERENCE

Choudhary, A. (2020, November 12). Difference Between Aseptic and Sterile Conditions.
Pharmaceutical Guidelines. Retrieved September 11, 2022, from
https://www.pharmaguideline.com/2017/10/difference-between-aseptic-and-sterile-
area.html