A University of Otago graduate now working at the Queensland University of Technology institute of health and biomedical innovation Prof Kenneth Beagley said the introduction of a vaccine was still 10-15 years away.
Experiments with mice had delivered vaccine through the nose.
Other possibilities included applying the vaccine to intact skin through liquids, gels or patches.
There was potential to take these ideas forward to human trials with "a reasonable hope of success", he said.
Prof Beagley told about 200 people at the recent New Zealand Sexual Health Society conference in Dunedin some studies in mice had suggested antibiotic treatment of the disease might prevent the development of immunity.
Among the challenges to be addressed was in developing a vaccine which was effective throughout a woman's reproductive cycle, even though changes in female sex hormones influenced local immune responses.
Despite the challenges, modelling studies had shown that even a vaccine which was only 50% successful for a 10-year period would rapidly decrease the prevalence of disease in a population.
The best coverage would involve vaccinating all males and females, and the next best would be vaccinating all females, which would be better than a 50/50 split between the genders.
In another presentation, a United Kingdom specialist in sexually transmitted infections and public health medicine Dr Nicola Low gave an international perspective on chlamydia screening.
She said claims made about increases in the incidence of chlamydia were hard to evaluate unless it was known whether it was due to a rise in the amount of testing being done for it.
Screening programmes had to be clear about what they could achieve.
Since chlamydia caused only a third of all pelvic inflammatory disease, a testing programme was unlikely to get a 50% reduction in that disease.
No country had controlled the disease, and gains claimed by some studies were questioned by Dr Low, including those which showed a decrease in reported cases which coincided with increased promotion of condom use in the wake of the Aids epidemic.
New Zealand had an excellent opportunity to make some good evidence-based decisions about how to manage the disease and these decisions should centre on randomised controlled trials.
