Australia approves vaccine to protect koalas against chlamydia

Australia approved and funded a vaccine to protect koalas against chlamydia as part of its repopulation efforts for the endangered species.

Koalas used to populate Australia in the millions, but many were gunned down for their fur in the early 20th century.

While koala hunting has since been banned, the species still struggles to recover as its very efforts to repopulate are threatened by rampant chlamydia, which is responsible for more than half of all koala deaths in the wild.

Chlamydia is commonly transmitted through direct contact during mating and even to offspring during birth, regardless of the species. For koalas, it can cause infertility and even blindness on top of severe urinary tract infections that can leave them so dehydrated and brittle that they don’t even have the strength to seek out food.

Peter Timms, an intrepid professor of microbiology at the University of the Sunshine Coast, spent more than a decade painstakingly testing and developing a single-dose vaccine specially for the cuddly marsupials.

Timms lamented that he’s watched many individual colonies tiptoe closer to “local extinction.” In Queensland and New South Wales, two of Australia’s six states, infection rates spike between 50% and 70%, he said.

The vaccine, though, could cut the ever-growing mortality rate among wild koalas by as much as 65%.

“It offers three levels of protection — reducing infection, preventing progression to clinical disease and, in some cases, reversing existing symptoms,” Timms explained.

Timms’ efforts were boosted by research partner and microbiologist Samuel Phillips, who explained that it took 15 years just to refine the single-dose formula so that it could include three chlamydia protein targets and an adjuvant.

The single-dose aim was part of a conservative approach so that they wouldn’t “have to catch the koalas multiple times and bring them back to the hospitals,” Phillips said.

They plan to roll out around 500 doses early next year, but added that they’ll need more funding to ramp up production and help save the sum-odd 60,000 wild koalas in Australia. He added that they’ve also had demonstrated interest from wildlife hospitals.

“We estimate that they’ll need at least 1,000 to 2,000 doses per year, and that’s not including the program to go out and try and protect koala populations,” Phillips said.

So far, the Australian government has set aside roughly $495,000 from its $76 million budget to save the koalas. A majority of the fund has been put toward bolstering habitat restoration projects and the national monitoring program, which assesses the country’s koala population.

Beyond the STDs, koalas have also been threatened by widespread habitat loss and deforestation worsened by climate change.

In April, hundreds of koalas in an area already desecrated by bushfires were culled by shooters in low-flying helicopters. The culling aimed to eliminate the sick and injured koalas, but it inadvertently left many healthy joeys orphaned.

With Post wires