School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Queensland, Gatton, Queensland 4343, Australia.
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Q Block, 60 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059, Australia.
J Wildl Dis. 2020 Jan;56(1):82-92. Epub 2019 Jul 22.
Declining population sizes of koalas () in SE Queensland (QLD), Australia can partially be attributed to chlamydiosis, with the majority of epidemiological studies focusing on the prevalence of infection and associated pathology in female koalas, with lesser attention given to males. We aimed to explore the epidemiology of infection in the male urogenital tract from wild (hospitalized and free-ranging) koalas in SE QLD. Although 67% of male koalas were infected with in their urogenital tract and 55% were shedding the organism in their semen, only a third of the males sampled presented with overt signs of urogenital disease. Infection with was lower in populations from rural locations, compared with periurban locations, with a corresponding low association between urogenital infection and clinical disease. The presence of in penile urethral swabs was a good predictor of the presence of in semen, with a significant correlation (=0.006) in 58% of males. In contrast, the load in penile urethral swabs was not a good predictor of the load in semen, with no significant correlation. In addition, 57% of male koalas had large numbers of bacterial copy numbers in the penile urethra (upper quartile) and 40% shedding into semen with no overt signs of disease. Investigation of the association of infection, body condition score, and age revealed that the highest incidence of urogenital infection occurred in males with the lowest body score (1 out of 10). Furthermore, 63% of sexually mature male koalas (>2 yr old) had urethral infections and 50% had in their semen. Our study suggested that the role of chlamydia in male koala infertility has been previously underestimated.
澳大利亚昆士兰州东南部（昆士兰州）的考拉数量下降（）部分归因于衣原体病，大多数流行病学研究集中在雌性考拉的感染率和相关病理学上，而对雄性考拉的关注较少。我们旨在探索昆士兰州东南部野生（住院和自由放养）考拉雄性泌尿生殖道感染的流行病学。尽管 67%的雄性考拉在泌尿生殖道中感染了，但只有三分之一的雄性考拉出现明显的泌尿生殖疾病症状。与城市周边地区相比，农村地区的感染率较低，泌尿生殖道感染与临床疾病之间的相关性也较低。阴茎尿道拭子中存在 是精液中存在 的良好预测指标，在 58%的男性中存在显著相关性（=0.006）。相比之下，阴茎尿道拭子中的 负荷与精液中的 负荷没有很好的相关性。此外，57%的雄性考拉的阴茎尿道中有大量细菌拷贝数（上四分位数），40%的细菌排入精液中而没有明显的疾病症状。对 感染、身体状况评分和年龄的相关性的调查表明，泌尿生殖道感染发生率最高的是身体状况评分最低的雄性考拉（1 分中的 1 分）。此外，63%的性成熟雄性考拉（>2 岁）有尿道感染，50%的有在精液中。我们的研究表明，衣原体在雄性考拉不育中的作用以前被低估了。
