Chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is transmitted by having vaginal, anal or oral sex with an infected person, is one of the most common in the world. Only in the United States there are about 3 million infections each year. Now, a team of scientists from the McMaster University Infectious Diseases Research Institute (Canada) has made significant progress toward the first chlamydia vaccine.
The most common cause of this disease (between 85-90% of infections) comes from the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Despite this, the contagion does not present symptoms, so most people – by not having tests – do not know that they have the disease and, therefore, no treatment is carried out.
Lack of chlamydia treatment can cause serious health consequences, especially in the case of women that can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, whose effects include chronic pain and difficulty in getting pregnant.
Considering that the only way to protect yourself from chlamydia is to use a condom for the moment, the design of an effective vaccine is more than hopeful. In their experiment, the researchers immunized a group of female mice with a new antigen called BD584, which is made up of three C. trachomatis proteins: CopB, EPOC, and CT584.
By infecting mice with Chlamydia Muridarum – a variant of C. trachomatis. They found that the antigen reduced Chlamydia secretion by 95%, a symptom of C. trachomatis infection. Another symptom of infection, in which the fallopian tubes fill with fluid, was also reduced by 87.5% in the immunized mice.
Based on their results, the experts suggest that this antigen is a promising candidate for a chlamydia vaccine : “Vaccination would be the best way to prevent chlamydia infection, and this study has identified important new antigens that could be used as part of a vaccine to prevent or eliminate the harmful reproductive consequences of untreated infections ”, explains David Bulir, co-author of the work.
The study has been published in the journal Vaccine.
