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Researchers discover new approach to Chlamydia vaccinations

Xinhua, June 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

An international team of researchers including participants from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria has discovered a new approach in vaccinating against sexually-transmitted disease Chlamydia that has shown early success in mice, the university stated on Thursday.

About 100 million people contract the disease annually making it the common sexually-transmitted bacteria in the world.

One of the researchers, Georg Stary from the University Clinic of Dermatology who has been working with the team at the Harvard Medical School Boston, said one in two persons who contracts the disease does not notice any symptoms, meaning antibiotic treatments, particularly effective in the early stages, are mostly ineffective if the disease has progressed to a chronic form.

Additionally, previous attempts to immunise people against Chlamydia infections have failed, and in some cases made them even more susceptible to an infection.

The research group has now been able to mimic a Chlamydia infection in a mouse model using nanotechnology, and then administer a protective vaccine directly to a mucosal surface, such as in the nose, activating two waves of immune cells.

"The combination of these two waves of memory cells is required to guarantee optimum immunological protection in the event of infection," Stary said, adding in this case it acts as a "turbocharger for the human immune response."

The Dermatology department at the Medical University of Vienna says the findings could also lead to the development of effective strategies in vaccinating against other types of mucosal infections.

The research results of the study have been published in "Science" magazine. Endit