STD Riddled Koalas May Help Create A Vaccine
Scientists currently believe they have discovered a way to manufacture a vaccine for chlamydia – a rather horrible sexually transmitted disease. According to these scientists, koalas are the key factor, as it is believed that 70 percent of the species’ population has the STD at this time.
Two universities within Queensland are currently investigating how the infection can damage DNA within male marsupials – and they hope this study will lead them closer to a vaccine for the disease. In 2013, over 200,000 people in England tested positive for chlamydia, and those numbers are only going to rise in the near future.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Profess Ken Beagley, of QUT Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said: “Looking across populations, between 40 and as high as 70 per cent of koalas will be carrying chlamydia somewhere in their body. Damage to sperm DNA has certainly been demonstrated in males with chlamydial infections and a history of chlamydial infections is associated with reduced fertility. For males, if they’ve got it in the testes that’s causing degradation of their sperm so they can’t breed as successfully. But it’s still understudied and there’s a lot of debate.”
According to the studies, koalas have a weakness within their immune system which makes them so capable of contracting chlamydia easily.
