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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Koalas to be vaccinated against deadly chlamydia in world first
By Amy Woodyatt, CNN
Updated:
8:29 AM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025
A vaccine used to treat in Australia’s has been approved for rollout,
in a world-first project.
Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast spent more than
10 years developing a single-dose vaccine to protect the famed
Australian marsupial from the effects of chlamydia, which include
urinary tract infections, infertility, blindness and death, the
university said in a statement Wednesday.
Chlamydia is responsible for half of koala deaths in the country’s
wild populations, which are predominantly found in the eucalyptus
forests along Australia’s eastern coast.
“Some individual colonies are edging closer to local extinction every
day, particularly in South East Queensland and New South Wales, where
infection rates within populations are often around 50 percent and in
some cases can reach as high as 70 percent,” Peter Timms, professor
of microbiology at UniSC’s Centre for Bioinnovation, said in a
Often used as an emblem of Australian culture, the fluffy gray
marsupials can only be found in Australia, and are considered
endangered in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital
Territory. Aside from disease, the creatures are vulnerable to habitat
loss, animal attacks and being hit by cars, and were named critically
endangered in 2022, Australia’s World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
They are also often victims of the deadly bushfires that have ravaged
Australia in its summer months in This year, some 860 koalas in Budj
Bim National Park were shot from the air to “reduce suffering”
after a bushfire, CNN affiliate
Antibiotics were previously used to treat chlamydia in koalas, but the
drugs often interfere with their ability to digest their staple diet of
eucalyptus leaves, causing them to starve to death.
Now approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines
Authority for production and widespread use, in a what researchers
describe as a “world first,” the chlamydia vaccine has already been
trialed on hundreds of wild and captive koalas, according to UniSC,
which noted it had already been tested across multiple generations of
the animal in
“This study found that the vaccine reduced the likelihood of koalas
developing symptoms of chlamydia during breeding age and decreased
mortality from the disease in wild populations by at least 65
percent,” said researcher Sam Phillips, who led the study, which was
the largest and longest study of wild koalas.
“It’s based on Chlamydia pecorum’s major outer membrane protein
(MOMP), and offers three levels of protection — reducing infection,
preventing progression to clinical disease and, in some cases,
reversing existing symptoms,” he added.
In humans, chlamydia is a bacterial that can cause infertility if left
untreated.
The disease spreads in koala populations through reproduction and
social behavior connected to mating. In addition, baby koalas — known
as joeys — can catch the disease from their mothers.
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