(Steven Reinberg/ HealthDay News) — A vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia appears safe and potentially effective, an early trial suggests.
The phase 1 study included 35 healthy women. Those who were given injections of two possible vaccines developed antibodies to the chlamydia bacteria, but a lot more testing is needed before the vaccine would be ready for the public, the researchers added.
“An effective vaccine against chlamydia would have enormous public health and economic impact,” said lead researcher Frank Follmann. He is director of infectious disease immunology at the Center for Vaccine Research at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“This is a promising first step on the road to develop a vaccine,” he said. “The success of the HPV [human papillomavirus] vaccine has shown us how effective vaccination can be against a sexually transmitted infection. We hope to do the same with chlamydia and, in the long term, combine the two vaccines.” (…)