In a small animal hospital on Queensland’s Gold Coast, doctors are working to loosen the grip chlamydia has on Australia’s koala population. Experts estimate around half of the koalas in Queensland and New South Wales could be infected with the disease, and it’s having disastrous effects on the number of animals left in the wild. But there’s hope in vaccines, which are showing positive signs.
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00:00I guess there's still a lot we need to learn about it, but, you know, the suggestions are
00:06that for QAL, it's a relatively new disease, so we're talking, you know, the last hundred
00:11or so years, so they're still kind of naive to chlamydia, so they haven't, you know, developed
00:18that immunity and it's, I guess, post-COVID now, everyone understands that, you know,
00:23when a new disease emerges, you know, it can spread very quickly and cause massive problems,
00:28but once you develop a bit of immunity, then, you know, things start to turn around and
00:33certainly chlamydia is, it spreads slowly, so it's still spreading throughout Australia
00:38and, you know, those populations that haven't been exposed get exposed and it's very devastating
00:44when it first emerges.
00:45In areas, you know, where we're focusing our efforts, you know, well over half those koalas
00:51are infected and dying from chlamydia, you know, this is a nasty disease that, you know,
00:57certainly kills a lot of koalas and those koalas that survive, often they're infertile,
01:02so, you know, when we're talking an endangered species that, you know, a disease that's making
01:06them infertile and they can't breed, of course, that, you know, makes things even worse for
01:11those that can actually survive the disease, so it is a massive problem, I mean, there's
01:17certainly areas where it doesn't seem to be as bad and, you know, that, of course, gives
01:21us hope that, you know, that some koalas may be genetically stronger and able to, you
01:27know, maybe resist it, but certainly in many areas it's a massive problem and it's certainly
01:34leading the way as far as, you know, decimating their population number.
01:38The vaccine itself's been around for almost 10 years now, developed by Ken Bigley at QUT
01:44and I guess what we're doing is really putting it in a situation where we're using it in
01:50a very diseased population, vaccinating koalas when they're young and healthy and then following
01:55them through and, you know, seeing does the vaccine work, do these koalas breed, is there
02:01hope to be able to turn things around, you know, and actually get the numbers to start
02:06to build back up in these highly diseased populations and, look, we've been doing it
02:11for about three and a half years now and certainly, you know, the results are very encouraging
02:17that, you know, we're providing a level of protection.
02:20It's not perfect, you know, no vaccines are, but certainly it's encouraging enough to be
02:26able to say we're making a difference and, you know, when we're dealing with such a nasty
02:31disease and any difference is quite important.
02:34And I think this is just the start as with, you know, as we know with COVID, you know,
02:38the first vaccines developed were never the, you know, they're not the ones we're using
02:42now.
02:43So, you know, the chlamydia vaccine will evolve, it will improve over the years, but certainly
02:49we need to, you know, I guess, be getting in that space where we're using it more to
02:53be able to make, you know, that difference.
02:55QUT are working very hard to get emergency registration of the vaccine and, you know,
03:01hopefully in the not too distant future, there'll be agreement between a number of parties to
03:06be able to get that over the line and make that a reality.
03:09So then it can be used, you know, across the country to, you know, koala populations
03:15where it's needed.