BCG vaccine immunity against human tuberculosis. The BCG vaccine can be anywhere from 0 to 80% effective in preventing tuberculosis for a duration of 15 years; however, its protective effect appears to vary according to geography and the lab in which the vaccine strain was grown. A number of different companies make BCG, sometimes using different genetic strains of the bacterium. This may result in different product characteristics. OncoTICE, used for bladder instillation for bladder cancer, was developed by Organon Laboratories (since acquired by Schering-Plough, and in turn acquired by Merck & Co.). Pacis BCG, made from the Montréal (Institut Armand-Frappier) strain,
Inoculation needle is uncapped. The open end of the uncapped slant culture is then flamed. The slant will be positioned to move up the needle until the inoculation needle tip lightly come into contact with the base surface of the sterile media. The inoculation needle inoculates the sterile agar by the manipulation of the media so that the needle tip grazes the agar surface in a zigzag pattern. Aseptic technique is then applied to the withdrawn inoculation needle. Inoculation of a plate culture is done through the streaking technique to make a streak plate. After lifting the lid so that it hovers