>> Welcome back everyone to Inside Infection Control, our video blog here from CDC's Project Firstline. I'm Abby Carlson. I'm an infectious diseases doctor at the CDC, and it's great to have you here today. Today we're going to talk about cleaning and disinfection. And we hear that phrase a lot, cleaning and disinfection. They're talked about together, but there is a difference between them. What is that difference? Cleaning is the process of removing dirt, germs, and other gunk that you get on surfaces and objects. Disinfection is a different step, usually a separate step but not always, that kills germs on surfaces or objects. Cleaning and disinfection are both very important, and they keep infections from spreading in healthcare. But how? Let's break this down a little bit. We'll start with cleaning. You can think of cleaning as removing the gunk that you can see on surfaces. It also removes some things that you don't see like germs. When you clean your house, you're getting rid of dust, dirt, grime and all the other spills, smears, and stuff that happen in everyday lives but in healthcare we do exactly the same thing. Just like a house, dust and dirt contains skin cells, dust mites, hair, debris. It's even more important in healthcare though because those things can get not just into the environment but onto patients, onto wounds, onto burns, into your mouth, and we need to keep those away from our patients. And spills and smears in healthcare can include things like body fluids, blood, urine, and sweat and we need all of that to be cleaned up. It's common sense that cleaning is important in healthcare, and sometimes cleaning is enough but sometimes disinfection is necessary. Cleaning doesn't kill germs, it removes them. Disinfection kills germs. Disinfection shouldn't come before cleaning. They either happen at the same time in a single product or cleaning comes first in the two-step process of cleaning and disinfection. Why is that? ^M00:02:23 When you do disinfect, it's important that the surface is clean because if it isn't, the disinfection might not work. The product might not be able to get to the germs because they're covered in other things. If there is dirt or spills or smears on the surface, the other thing is that you might spread that around while you're disinfecting because the disinfectant won't necessarily pick that up and clean. So killing germs is important in healthcare because bacteria that is there, that can get into our patients who are ill and weak and the same goes for viruses and other infectious germs. And when our patients are ill and weak, they're more likely to get really sick from certain germs that we find in healthcare. So you can see why cleaning and disinfection are both so important. We've posted a link to more information in the Facebook comments below including a list of disinfectants that are effective against SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19. So be sure to check us out on Facebook as well as on Twitter and YouTube where our videos are getting posted now as well. Of course, if all of those aren't your bucket of tea, we can have you check out our CDC website cdc.gov/projectfirstline. With that, we'll see you all with the next episode.