A successful clinical trial has raised hopes of the creation of a vaccine against chlamydia.
The early-stage trial led by a research team from the UK and Denmark found that an experimental vaccine against the sexually transmitted infection (STI) did successfully trigger immune responses. This has raised hopes that one day it could be used more widely to curb the spread of the disease.
There is currently no jab to protect against chlamydia, which is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections STIs in the UK.
Almost 200,000 cases were identified in England alone in 2022, up nearly 25% rise from the year before, according to official figures.
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In the trial, which took place from 2020 through 2022, participants were split equally between healthy men and women with an average age of 26. None of them had chlamydia.
More than 150 people took part in the study, which was carried out at the National Institute for Health Research in London.
The researchers tested several different dosages for the vaccine, and participants got either the vaccine or a placebo on three separate days over almost four months.
The success of this Phase 1 trial means the researchers are already planning to launch a larger, Phase 2, trial. This would look to gauge the vaccine’s effectiveness. The findings from the clinical trial have been published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Chlamydia is a common cause of infertility in women. It can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to scar tissue which makes it harder to get pregnant if left untreated.
The bacteria can also cause an eye infection estimated to be responsible for vision loss in 1.9 million people worldwide.
The hope is that one day the vaccine could prevent both infections in the reproductive system and the eyes, said study author Jes Dietrich, a senior scientist at Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.
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In addition to a shot in the arm, volunteers in the study also got a vaccine in the form of an eye drop.
“I was very pleasantly surprised, because it’s really difficult to induce immunity in the eye,” Dietrich told NBC News in the US.
