Yay Science!

[lederhosen]

Queensland University of Technology press release says a vaccine against one of the world's most common sexually-transmitted infections, chlamydia, may be available in three to five years. If they can achieve that, it'll save a lot of fertility treatments and more than a handful of lives; if it can be made cheap enough for worldwide use, it will also eliminate the most common cause of preventable blindness.

Obviously the usual suspects will complain bitterly about anything that might make sex safer, but stuff 'em, I'm pleased. We may not have defeated HIV yet, but substantial strides have been made just in my lifetime on HPV, Hep B, and now this.

Comments

[jklgoduke.livejournal.com]

Oddly I'm reminded of a comedy sketch (I keep picturing Cosby's voice, but I'm not sure this is his style) I heard once on the subject of VDs with the refrain "and then God upped the ante" ... working through miscellaneous diseases and the treatments and cures that had been found for them, through Herpes ("the gift that keeps on giving") to AIDS.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Mind you, a lot of these (AIDS excepted) have been around for a very long time and we've only just learned to recognise the damage they do; a hundred years ago nobody knew HPV-11 existed, but it was killing people and causing infertility all the same.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Chlamydia currently kills or sterilises lots of animals, too.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I'd completely forgotten that, but you're right - causes a lot of trouble for koalas, IIRC. I don't know if the same vaccine would work in animals, but it might point towards one that does.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

It's likely, yeah.

Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if it's used in animals first.

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

It would pretty much have to be a "point to one that does" case, I think. Chlamydia was a genus* with multiple species; the human STD, the feline one, the guinea-pig one, murine and porcine species, the koala one - chlamydia/chlamydophila pneumoniae, which also causes respiratory infections in humans and other issues for frogs, turtles, and iguanas - and the avian one responsible for psittacosis (which also causes lung disease in humans). Not all of them are sexually transmitted, which shouldn't surprise anyone given some of them are zoonotic - psittacosis in particular is a workplace hazard for veterinary types.

I trust you noted the "was" too. It's a source of ongoing amusement to me that around 1999, they reclassified a bunch of these into the genus Chlamydophila, leaving Chlamydia with only three species (the human, the murine and the porcine, if you're curious) - the change has been slow to propogate through the wider world, and I was vaguely surprised to hear it was so long ago, but I digress. The differentiation was made on the basis of genetic stuff, DNA coding and the like, but part of me gleefully suspects that it was partly to stop people freaking out when they heard that they or their pets had *gasp* Chlamydia! *giggle*

* - Actually, the family, order, and entire phylum derive their names from this genus.

** - I actually tested positive for in the last round of tests. I think I mentioned at the time that it was rather amusing - in hindsight - watching poor Asagwe freeze for a moment as the nutritionist flicked through my test results and commented "and you're positive for chlamydia..."

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Well, those Queenslanders are obviously doing something right - first UQ came up with the cervical cancer vaccine, and now this.

Yay!

And thankfully, the "zOMG, you're encouraging SEX!!!1!" contingent don't seem to have managed to stop the manufacture and distribution of the other vaccines you mention. The nasty little thoughts at the back of my mind also point out that really, if they want to let themselves and their children in for infertility by withholding the vaccine, isn't that just natural selection in action?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the teen-pregnancy-through-abstinence-education angle seems to counteract that :-(

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

That's true to an extent, but I like to think that in turn, teen pregnancies can be something of an education of their own - for both generations involved...

Perhaps that is simply naievete on my part, though. *sigh*

[velvetink.livejournal.com]

that is good news! they might now have time to work on the mosquito.

[harliquinn.livejournal.com]

... I was going to make a crude joke about preventable blindness ...

GOOD news. Glad to see someone's universities are taking research seriously somewhere on the globe.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

That would be awesome!