Helping Endangered Koalas’ Health—and Potentially Humans’ Too 

Research conducted last summer by Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine veterinary student Elliot Grossman, V21, is helping koalas with chlamydia. Working at Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital with veterinarian and director Rosie Booth, he retrospectively compared 311 cases of koalas treated for chlamydia—a leading cause of death for these animals, looking at the outcomes and side effects of the two antibiotics most commonly used to treat it: chloramphenicol and doxycycline.

A statistical analysis of the data gathered found no significant difference in survival rates between animals treated with either antibiotic, however it did find that those treated with chloramphenicol had more treatment failures, necessitating a change in antibiotic, as well as more side effects, including higher rates of bone-marrow dysfunction and yeast infections in the gastrointestinal tract, and more dehydration, depression, diarrhea, and weight loss. Koalas on doxycycline had a significantly higher probability of having no side effects whatsoever.

The hospital has already used the information from this research to help the koalas they are treating. Read more about Elliot’s work (as well as the work of a Tufts University School of Medicine faculty member who has been studying koalas and chlamydia in hopes of finding an effective human vaccine):

Read more by clicking on the link below:

 https://now.tufts.edu/articles/helping-endangered-koalas-health-and-potentially-humans-too.