According to a study published by the BBC, the koala could disappear in the coming years due to a sexually transmitted infection, chlamydia.
At the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary hospital in eastern Australia, the establishment’s head veterinarian, Michael Pyne, sees koalas flocking. This species of herbivorous arboreal marsupial, adored for its appearance and cuddly nature, is threatened by a chlamydia epidemic.
“Chlamydia has increased considerably, almost exponentially,” the doctor alarmed the BBC. “There are days when we euthanize lots of koalas who arrive completely devastated.” This sexually transmitted infection threatens the species with extinction. There is no shortage of attempts to save them by developing a vaccine but are blocked by regulations. Researchers lack both time and money, the research establishment points out.
80% shot
Just a few decades ago, seeing a koala nestled in a garden tree was nothing out of the ordinary. There were many of them on the Australian coast. But in recent times, the species has been in dramatic decline – in some places it has fallen by 80% in just ten years. Land clearing and urbanization leave marsupials hungry and homeless, while natural disasters drown or cook them in droves.
Estimates vary wildly – koalas are notorious for being difficult to count – but some groups say there are only 50,000 animals left in the wild and the species is officially listed as endangered for the majority. of the planet. There are now fears that the animals will disappear in some countries within a generation.
Dr Pyne nostalgically recounts “the early days” when his hospital saw only a handful of koalas a year. They are now seeing 400. Among the main reasons koalas are brought to wildlife hospitals – collisions with vehicles or attacks by pets – chlamydia is the most serious and deadly.
It causes conjunctivitis in koalas, but presents as an infection of the genitals and urinary organs in others. Particularly unlucky animals catch both at the same time. In the worst cases, the ocular form can be so severe that koalas are blinded and starve, while the urogenital infection produces giant fluid-filled cysts so that daily bodily functions, like urinating, cause people to scream. of pain animals.
4,500 euro vaccine
“Their reproductive system collapses,” says Dr. Pyne. If detected early enough, treatment is an option, but it can prove a potentially fatal ‘nightmare’ as antibiotics destroy the gut bacteria that allow koalas to digest otherwise toxic eucalyptus leaves – their main food source .
But on a species scale, the disease, which is spread through bodily fluids, causes even greater damage. Chlamydia is not uncommon in other animals – koalas are believed to have first caught it from livestock – but the spread and intensity of the disease in marsupials is unparalleled.
Enter Queensland State University of Technology and its vaccine, which aims to prevent and treat chlamydia in koalas and has been in development for almost two decades. The establishment is trying to save koalas by capturing young ones and vaccinating them. So far, only three of the koalas vaccinated in this research trial have contracted the disease, although all have recovered, and it is encouraging that more than two dozen cubs have been born, which goes to against the tendency towards infertility.
But treating and vaccinating each koala against chlamydia costs them around 7,000 Australian dollars (around 4,500 euros). The number of deaths fell by two thirds among vaccinated koalas. Biologist Samuel Phillips tells the BBC that a local population of koalas they studied, then threatened with extinction, had prompted authorities to relocate some of the animals so that they did not overpopulate the area. Importantly, the study found that koalas who contracted chlamydia did so later in life, after their breeding years had begun.
