Eliminating Chlamydia in Koalas

Wow... I knew that many animals had herpes and if you want to get a herpes free lab animal it costs many times what a 'normal' herpes carrying animal does. But wow... Chlamydia in Koalas?! Maybe some of you bio people out there can tell us whether it's the same Chlamydia humans carry. So basically If I go to Australia and nail a koala - can I catch it and give it to my sheep?

Here's the exciting details on how Australian scientists are going to protect the koala population from STD's.

Professor Peter Timms, from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said chlamydia was a major threat to the continued survival of koalas with almost all populations affected by the disease.

"The trial is planned to begin before the end of the year and will test the vaccine's ability to induce a good immune response in the koala against chlamydia," he said.

"Assuming that this first trial is successful, then future trials can determine if this immune response is able to protect the koalas against chlamydial disease.

"We've been able to develop the vaccine for koalas as a result of our studies on the development of human chlamydial vaccines done in the mouse model. We have identified several novel vaccine proteins that we hope will protect koalas as well."

Professor Timms said chlamydia in koalas was a significant cause of infertility, urinary tract infections, and inflammation in the lining of the eye that often led to blindness.

"The numbers of koalas with chlamydia seems to be increasing," he said.

"As much as 40-50 per cent of koalas coming into care in both Queensland and NSW are showing clinical signs of the disease and it seems to be getting worse."

-source-

Maybe if Koalas didn't have so much group sex like the above picture demonstrates they wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with. Perhaps the Australian government should call George Bush and ask about his super successful Abstinence only education that has been sweeping the U.S.