Final answer:
Sterilization is the complete destruction of all microorganisms, including vegetative cells, endospores, and viruses, and is different from sanitization and disinfection, which reduce but may not eliminate all microbes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The destruction of all microorganisms, including vegetative cells, endospores, and viruses, is known as sterilization. This process is required in settings such as laboratory, medical, and food industries, where certain items must be free of infectious agents. Sterilization is the most extreme form of microbial control and can be achieved through physical means like heat, pressure, or filtration, or with the use of chemicals called sterilants.
While sterilization leads to the complete removal or killing of all microorganisms, disinfection inactivates most microbes on a surface but does not guarantee complete sterility as some resilient forms, such as endospores, may survive. Sanitization is a process that involves cleaning to reduce microbes to levels considered safe for public health. Universal Precaution is a practice in healthcare settings to prevent disease transmission by treating all human blood and certain body fluids as if they were known to be infectious.