Thread by @newscientist

A team @ImperialCollege have shown that an experimental chlamydia vaccine known as CTH522 is safe, and that it triggers an immune response against the bacteria that cause the disease

Did you know there’s also a chlamydia vaccine in the works for koalas? In Australia researchers are running trials of a vaccine to halt the epidemic of the disease, which is wiping out the countries population of koalas newscientist.com/article/212850…

A third of koalas have been lost over the last 20 years, largely due to the spread of chlamydia, which now affects between 50 and 100% of wild populations. It’s caused by a different bacterium, Chlamydia pecorum, to the one that causes disease in humans, Chlamydia trachomatis

While a chlamydia vaccine is in the works for koalas, it’s not ready yet. So for now the best option seems to be antibiotics to kill the infection. But koalas often suffer serious side effects from antibiotics, and researchers are trying to figure out why newscientist.com/article/216445…

Back to humans, where rates of chlamydia and other sexually transmitted infections have been rising in recent years in England, Australia and the US. What can we do to stop the rise? newscientist.com/article/mg2373…

It is too soon to tell whether or not the CTH522 vaccine will protect against chlamydia in humans, but researchers in this area say it “would have enormous public health and economic impact”.
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