Sydney ( Australia), 26 mar ( EFE).-A vaccine developed by an Australian scientific opens an hope for the Chlamydia bacterium does not end with the population of koalas in the oceanic country, reported local media.
These emblematic animals are disappearing rapidly in some parts of Australia as a result of this disease, that produces lesions on the genitals and the eyes of the koalas causing infertility and blindness and consume slowly to death.
Peter Timms, Professor of Microbiology of the Institute of health and biomedical innovation of the Queensland University of technology, has made the first tests with this new vaccine in koalas living in sanctuaries.
Many of the vaccinated marsupials began to show a positive response to the sixty days of receiving this medicine and animals that had already contracted Chlamydia did not suffer adverse reactions.
“we made tests for more than one year and after that time, the koalas are immunized,” said Timms the local ABC station.
Next month, the team of scientists led by Timms tested the vaccine in the wild koalas that inhabit in the Gold Coast, in Queensland State, where the disease has affected up to 40 per cent of these animals.
So Nigeria to a small group of koalas and placed them a collar to monitor their movements before releasing them again in their habitat.
Timms believes that if its vaccine is successful it will be difficult to vaccinate the entire population of koalas, but believes that this medicine in animals arriving in rescue centres each year can inoculate.
“only in Queensland are 3,000 koalas each year”, added the expert in microbiology.
There are still many unknowns about how he began to get the koalas this disease, but it is believed that it was introduced by a sheep who arrived with the first European settlers or who was always present and began to spread rapidly in the past 200 years.
Chlamydia, which attacks various species of animals, is transmitted among the population of koalas during childbirth, copulation or in fights. EFE
