Final answer:
Infection control is a term that includes measures taken to prevent disease spread and manage microbial presence, ranging from sterilization with sterilants to sanitization with chemical disinfectants or heat.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term that describes efforts used to prevent the spread of disease and to kill or remove microbes is infection control. Infection control measures vary in complexity and application depending on the environment in which they are used. For items or areas requiring extreme levels of cleanliness, sterilization protocols are used to achieve the complete removal or killing of all vegetative cells, endospores, and viruses. Chemicals used in this process are known as sterilants. When the objective is to prevent microbial growth rather than killing microbes, substances such as bacteriostatic or fungistatic agents are used. In contrast, bactericides and fungicides are employed when microbes need to be killed. For surface sanitation, methods that significantly reduce microbial presence to safe levels may involve physical means like high temperatures or chemical disinfectants.
For example, to control microbes that do not form resistant structures like endospores, protocols such as laundering may be sufficient. However, for microbes such as Clostridium botulinum, which can form endospores, more strenuous methods like commercial sterilization with extreme temperatures and pressures are necessary.