One antibiotic cures 97 per cent of koalas treated for chlamydia

Treating koalas for chlamydia can be tricky. Koalas rely on bacterial fermentation of their high-fibre diet, making antibiotic therapy risky, and traditional anti-chlamydial antibiotics used in other species may cause fatal bacterial imbalances in koalas or simply be excreted before they can be effective. So, Australian researchers tested five antibiotics to treat 86 wild koalas at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital in the hope of finding one that worked and was well-tolerated. They found that doxycycline was the most effective, producing a 97 per cent cure rate. It was also well-tolerated by koalas and the weekly dosing requirement is a major advantage when treating wild animals.