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 Many of the primates, mostly rhesus macaques, at the Tulane National
Research Centre are destined for use in scientific research for
COVID-19.
The facility, with high-level biosafety laboratories able to handle
biological threat agents like anthrax, was well-positioned to pivot
quickly to COVID-19 research when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Primates' DNA and physiological features make them ideal models for
human comparison when studying diseases, said Skip Bohm, associate
director and chief veterinary medical officer at the Tulane center.
"Non-human primates are really critical for us to understand not
only the disease and how it affects the organism but also to compare
treatments, therapies, vaccinations," Bohm told Reuters.
Rhesus macaques, the primate species most commonly used for
scientific research, make up the majority of the center's breeding
colony and the 200 adult animals used in its coronavirus experiments
over the past year.
COVID-19-related studies by the centre include one published in the
National Academy of Sciences scientific journal in February that
found older individuals with high body mass index and more severe
COVID-19 infection exhaled more respiratory droplets, allowing them
to become so-called "super-spreaders."
Primates were the crux of the study, said Chad Roy, study coauthor
and the center's director of infectious disease aerobiology.
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 Among future work, the center
plans to study "long COVID", the incidence of
one in 10 diagnosed patients remaining unwell
long after their acute infection.
"There are many different therapeutics that are
coming online that need to be tested, and with
the network that we have, we can compare one
treatment to another," said center director Jay
Rappaport, referring to the facility's role
coordinating the COVID-19 work of the seven U.S.
primate research centers.
Once experiments are concluded, the Tulane
center euthanizes the monkeys for tissue
collection, allowing researchers to study
COVID-19's impact beyond the respiratory system.
Kathy Guillermo, a spokesperson for People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said
primates should not be used for testing.
"They wouldn't have to kill them if they didn't
use them," she said. "What we're going to learn
of value is going to be what we learn from human
beings."
(Reporting by Nathan Frandino; Editing by
Karishma Singh and Jane Wardell)
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