BCG vaccine nesting birds and rusted electrical conduits. The resulting closure of the plant for over two years resulting in shortages of bladder cancer and tuberculosis vaccines. On October 29, 2014 Health Canada gave the permission for Sanofi to resume production of BCG. The global supply situation was analyzed in 2017 and concluded that the global supply is sufficient to meet forecasted BCG vaccine demand but risks for shortages remain mainly due to supply concentration. A weakened strain of bovine tuberculosis bacillus, "Mycobacterium bovis" is specially subcultured in a culture medium, usually Middlebrook 7H9. Some BCG vaccines are freeze dried and become
BCG disease outbreak in Finland in the 2000s In practice, however, almost everything that's connected to vaccines is done with the National Public Health Institute. NPHI also does significant research funded by outside sources - ca. 40% of funding is outside, and the policy is to get as much outside funding as possible. Among the biggest funders has been the vaccine giant GlaxoSmithKline between 2003 and 2005. In the 1970s, there was a similar outbreak of BCG osteitis osteomyelitis in some Nordic countries, Sweden and Finland, when a Swedish-Danish BCG vaccine strain was used. To resolve the issue, Sweden discontinued mass BCG vaccinations to newborns, and Finland switched