Quality control for

bacteriological culture media

....
.
 Is the final inspection and testing of the finished
product to ensure its compliance with the
predetermined performance criteria
 This includes

i. Sterility
ii. Peformance test
iii. Control of Nutrient agar, Blood agar, and
chocolate agar
iv. Control of selective medium
v. Contor of biochemical reaction in the medium
vi. Control for transport medium
Sterility control

 Incubate at 35-37°C 5% of the prepared batch

overnight
 Turbidity in liquid media and growth colonies

in solid media indicates unsterile media

 Media in petridishes are best examined for

contamination immediately before use

Performance test
 Each laboratory should set up its own quality
control of the media it prepares
 A set of control organism should be available
 Sources

1. NCTC-National Collection of Type Cultures

2. ATCC- American Type of culture Collection
3. CDC- Center for Disease Control
4. Mast Diagnostic
5. Oxoid
Control of selective medium

 Use the control species that shows the

selectively inhibitory properties of the
medium
Control of Nutrient agar, Blood agar, and chocolate agar

 Use appropriate control species

 Inoculate the medium and incubate

appropriately overnight
 Examine cultures for the degree of growth

size, and other characteristics and compare

with the results of previous performance test
Control of biochemical test medium
 Inoculate the media with bacterial species of
known biochemical reactions
Quality control of transport medium
 Immerse in the medium a swab of the
specimen containing the pathogen(s) to be
preserved (eg urogenital swab containing
Neisseria gonorhoeae in Amies medium, or
faecal swab containing Shigella or Salmonella
in Carl Blair mediu) and leave at room
temperature for the length of the medium is
intended to preserve
 Inoculate the swab in appropriate medium to

check the viability of the pathogen

Bacteria control species for different
culture media
 Reffer to Chart 7.7 in Monica Chess Volume 2
page number 52