Bovine trichomoniasis vaccine solution near for infertility-causing cattle STI

A vaccine to prevent STIs in cattle could save the industry up to $100 million a year. (Supplied: Megan Pope, ABC News: Matt Roberts)

A sexually transmitted disease that causes infertility in cows could soon be vaccinated against in Australia.   

Bovine trichomoniasis has been found in one in 10 bulls across abattoirs in the northern beef regions.

It is caused by protozoa carried in the bull's penis that are transmitted to females during mating.

There is no vaccine available in Australia, but researchers from the University of Queensland are working to change that.

"We recognised that if you're breeding with contaminated bulls this disease can have up to a 15 per cent reduction in a herd," said Professor Ala Tabor, who led the early vaccine development.

"We took samples from infected bulls and purified the culture of the trichomoniasis, then we inactivated it by heating, to [then] be formulated into a killed-culture vaccine."

Professor Ala Tabor said vaccines are available overseas but not in Australia. (Supplied: Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation)

The early trial vaccine has proved successful on a small test group of bulls, and now Professor Tabor is working with Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) to conduct larger-scale trials.

"After those trials, the next step is registration with the APVMA [Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority] and then onto the commercial market," Professor Tabor said.

Cattle at UQ's Pinjarra Hills farm were part of the trial. (Supplied: Megan Pope )

Welcomed by cattle producers

From his cattle grazing operation near Mitchell, 500 kilometres west of Brisbane, Bim Struss commended the work of the researchers.

"If our industry doesn't produce the numbers of cattle that we need to produce, we lose dollars," said the grazier and representative for industry peak body AgForce Queensland.

The cost to the beef industry is up to $100 million per year.

And while the bacteria are most prevalent in cattle herds across Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland's Gulf Country, cattle are also being treated in regions further south.

Trucking cattle out of the north is bringing the disease south, Agforce Queensland's Bim Struss said. (ABC News)

"After the drought, a lot of our graziers in southern Queensland were buying cattle out of the north and were bringing some of this disease back," he said.

With the treatment of the STI currently limited to either culling infected cattle — a process made more difficult due to the difficulty in recognising the disease — or retiring cattle for an entire mating season in the hope they will clear themselves of the disease, Mr Struss was eager for a vaccine solution.

"The benefit of what these [researchers] are doing for us and this industry is giving us an opportunity to clear some of this disease," he said.