The state of Mississippi was sent into panic when authorities claimed that an 'aggressive' monkey infected with COVID and STDs was on the loose, yet the university is seemingly escaped from has chimed in with a statement of their own.
It all began with a post on Facebook from the Jasper County Sheriff's Department, which revealed that a truck carrying a group of monkeys had crashed, causing the animals to escape.
"This was a truck carrying Rehsus monkeys from Tulane University. The monkeys are approximately 40 lbs, they are aggressive to humans and they require PPE to handle," the statement reads.
"The monkeys carry hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID," it continued, adding that "all but one of the escaped monkeys have been destroyed."
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The implication was that the monkeys had been used in scientific tests regarding the aforementioned illnesses, and therefore posed a significant threat if they were unaccounted for in the wild — especially if they were as aggressive as the sheriff's department describes.
However, as reported by Futurism, Tulane University representatives have offered clarification to the situation, calming down much of the panic that had spread following the statement from local law enforcement.
Michael Strecker, a spokesperson for Tulane University, revealed to New Orleans-based news outlet NOLA that the "primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious," arguing that the information currently being spread about the monkeys was incorrect.
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He continued to assert that "non-human primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery," adding that the university is "actively collaborating with local authorities and will send a team of animal care experts to assist as needed."
Another spokesperson from the university has echoed Strecker's clarifications, illustrating that the "monkeys did not carry any infectious disease and had not been exposed to any infectious agent."
The one remaining monkey that has not been euthanized by authorities does perhaps remain a threat regardless of the lack of infection though, as an animal weighing around 40 lbs could potentially still cause some harm.
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The Jasper County Sheriff's Department has since offered its own response to Tulane University's clarification, revealing that they believed that the monkeys were carrying infectious diseases due to information received from the crashed vehicle's driver.
"The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans," the statement explained. "We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys. He also stated that you had wear [sic] PPE equipment to handle the monkeys."