Australian regulators have approved a chlamydia vaccine for koalas, researchers said Wednesday, as they seek to stamp out a sexually transmitted disease responsible for about half of all deaths of the fluffy marsupial in the wild.

For a decade, scientists at the University of the Sunshine Coast trialled the chlamydia vaccine in controlled settings.

But approval from the veterinary medicine regulator means the single-dose shot can be nationally rolled out.

Lead researcher Professor Peter Timms said the disease was driving wild koalas to extinction, particularly in southeast Queensland and New South Wales.

In those areas, “infection rates within populations are often around 50 percent and in some cases can reach as high as 70 percent,” he said.

Trials of the vaccine showed it reduced th

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