Australia's Koalas Have Chlamydia. Now There's Hope for a Vaccine

Readers of a certain age may remember the Qantas ads starting in the 1960s that featured a grumpy koala kvetching about the airline taking visitors to Australia. Today, getting a snapshot with a koala is nearly a must for tourists to the country.

But many of these animals, which are so important to the Australia’s tourism industry, are sick. From 30 percent to 50 percent of koalas in the wild have a strain of chlamydia related to the bug that causes the disease in humans, says Peter Timms, an Australian microbiologist. It turns out that while koalas can spend as many as 20 hours a day asleep, they make the most of the time they’re awake; male koalas mate with many females. All those mating partners are contributing to a nasty chlamydia outbreak that’s threatening the koala population.