Koalas will soon have protection from a deadly sexually transmitted disease that has devastated wild populations, following the approval of a nationwide chlamydia vaccine rollout.<\/p>\n
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has approved the single-dose vaccine, developed by the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) after more than a decade of research.<\/p>\n
The approval means the treatment can now be distributed nationally to protect one of the country’s most vulnerable species, and is no longer limited to trial conditions.<\/p>\n
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The UniSC vaccine can be delivered in a single dose. (ABC Sunshine Coast: Janel Shorthouse)<\/p>\n
UniSC and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have each developed separate vaccines, but the Sunshine Coast is the first to win approval.<\/p>\n
The QUT trial vaccination<\/a> requires two doses<\/a>, while the UniSC vaccine works with one.<\/p>\n Vaccine needed urgently<\/p>\n Chlamydia is one of the leading threats to koalas, causing painful urinary tract infections, infertility, blindness and death.<\/p>\n UniSC professor of microbiology Peter Timms said the single-dose version made the vaccine practical for use in the wild.<\/p>\n “That’s very important because with a koala, you’re not going to get a chance to capture it twice.”<\/p>\n Peter Timms is the koala research lead at the University of the Sunshine Coast. (ABC Sunshine Coast :Jessica Ross)<\/p>\n Koala populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory were listed as endangered in 2022.<\/p>\n South-east Queensland’s wild koala population has dropped to fewer than 16,000.<\/p>\n Professor Timms said vehicle strikes, animal attacks and the ongoing loss of habitat due to urban development also threatened the species.<\/p>\n He said the new vaccine was urgently needed.<\/p>\n “There are less koalas today than there was yesterday,” Professor Timms said.<\/p>\n “We know if it is rolled out across populations, it can make a difference overall.”Chlamydia’s toll<\/p>\n UniSC senior researcher Sam Phillips said the vaccine had shown strong results during the largest and longest-ever study of wild koalas conducted over the last three years.<\/p>\n “The vaccine reduced the likelihood of koalas developing symptoms of chlamydia during breeding age,” Dr Phillips said.<\/p>\n “[It] also decreased mortality from the disease in wild populations by at least 65 per cent,” he said.<\/p>\n The vaccine works by training the koala’s immune system to recognise and fight chlamydia bacteria.<\/p>\n It can reduce the risk of infection, as well as stop the disease’s progression and, in some cases, reverse symptoms.<\/p>\n Until now, antibiotics have been the only treatment.<\/p>\n How they can disrupt digestion and be fatal, and still often fail to prevent reinfection.<\/p>\n Julien Grosmaire says the vaccine is another tool to help protect koalas.\u00a0 (ABC: Janel Shorthouse\u00a0)<\/p>\n Endeavour Veterinary Ecology senior veterinarian Julien Grosmaire has treated many koalas suffering from the disease.<\/p>\n The specialist wildlife veterinary service where he works manages koala health programs and has been administering the vaccine as part of the university trials.<\/p>\n “Some koalas will come in blind from conjunctivitis, or very skinny from not being able to find food,” Dr Grosmaire said.<\/p>\n “Sometimes with bladder infections, they’ve got scalded skin and ulcerated rumps from the urine burning their skin.<\/p>\n “It is quite traumatic to see koalas come in when they’re so sick, and sometimes not be able to help.”<\/p>\n Dr Grosmaire said chlamydia was the “nail in the coffin” for koalas already under pressure from habitat loss.<\/p>\n UniSC researchers say a single-dose vaccine is a practice option for wild koala populations. (ABC Sunshine Coast: Janel Shorthouse)<\/p>\n Queensland Conservation Council campaigner Nicky Moffat said the vaccine’s approval was an exciting step, but raised questions about rollout and funding.<\/p>\n “A successful vaccine could be a game-changer for one of the most iconic and threatened mammals,” Ms Moffat said.<\/p>\n “The big question now is whether it will be rolled out widely, be funded by governments \u2026 and made affordable for under-resourced wildlife hospitals.”<\/p>\n She said a rollout was “critical for wild populations already under pressure”.<\/p>\n Nicky Moffat records sightings during a koala count in Yabba State Forest on the Sunshine Coast. (Photo supplied: Patrick Woods)<\/p>\n Call for government funding<\/p>\n Professor Timms said it was vital the vaccine reached at-risk populations quickly.<\/p>\n “We’ve seen at least one example of a population that was on the way down, and using the vaccine with other tools, you can turn them around,” he said.<\/p>\n Researchers are calling for state and federal support for the rollout.<\/p>\n They hope to deliver the vaccine to at-risk koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n “We need help to get the vaccine from research into reality,” Professor Timms said.<\/p>\n State Member for Pumicestone Ariana Doolan said the Queensland government recently invested $100,000 to help prepare the vaccine for registration.<\/p>\n Ariana Doolan says the state government has put money towards preparing the vaccine for registration. (ABC Sunshine Coast: Janel Shorthouse)<\/p>\n “It’s such a milestone for koala conservation \u2026 this is something that is going to preserve our Australian icon,” Ms Doolan said.<\/p>\n She said the government had also committed nearly $40 million over three years to expand wildlife hospitals across Queensland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Koalas will soon have protection from a deadly sexually transmitted disease that has devastated wild populations, following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[74752,64,63,91053,21513,137,91050,44946,91052,91049,91051,62048,4886],"class_list":["post-131241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-approval","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-pesticides-and-veterinary-medicines-authority","tag-chlamydia","tag-health","tag-julien-grosmaire","tag-koalas","tag-nation-wide-rollout","tag-peter-timms","tag-unisc","tag-university-of-the-sunshine-coast","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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