Woman being treated for rabies
- A driver who saw the pickup truck collide stopped to help.
- She looked inside one of the crates scattered at the scene and a monkey hissed at her.
- She is currently being treated for rabies and PETA wants to investigate the incident.
A woman happened on Friday truck-trailer accident carrying 100 monkeys is said to be receiving treatment after a monkey spat on her and she developed pink eye symptoms.
The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) organization said the US Department of Agriculture is investigating the accident. occurred on the east-central Pennsylvania highwayand subsequent attempts to capture some of the cynomolgus macaques that escaped from their enclosures.
The crash involved a pickup and dump truck collision near the Danville exit on Interstate 80. Pennsylvania State Police said several monkeys escaped from Friday’s collision and one monkey escaped. have not been arrested overnight.
Michele Fallon, the woman from Danville, Pennsylvania, who arrived after the accident, recounted Newspaper Enterprise press When she and another driver stopped to help, the other driver said he thought he saw a cat running across the street.
As Fallon looks into a crate, she hears noises and sees a monkey inside. Lisa Jones-Engel, senior science adviser for primate experiments at PETA, told USA TODAY: “She poked her finger in it and a monkey appeared. “She made it clear to me in one of our conversations that she had a face full of respiratory droplets,” said Jones-Engel, who spoke to Fallon. talk to Fallon.
Friday told WOLF-TV She went to the emergency room after becoming worried because she had an open cut on her hand and developed pinkeye-like symptoms.
Fallon, who will be on preventative medication for about two weeks, told WOLF-TV, “because the monkey was hissing at me and there was poop around, and I had an open cut, they just wanted to be on the lookout.”
Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an email to The Associated Press on Saturday night that all 100 monkeys have since been counted. Three people died.
PETA has criticized the CDC for what it considers shoddy monitoring following the incident. Follow CDC website.
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Fallon is being treated with antiviral and other drugs to protect against rabies, PETA said in a statement.
But reports from the scene suggested that “feces and urine from the terrified monkeys were said to have been smeared all over the highway as crates – not fastened as required – flew from trucks and ( CDC) should shuffle to ensure that many of those present at the scene are not in danger,” PETA said.
Jones-Engel told USA TODAY. “I’m surprised the CDC didn’t respond more quickly to first responders on this issue.”
Neither the USDA nor the CDC responded to requests for comment on the case.
PETA asked the USDA Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service to investigate the incident for potential violations in the transportation and handling of monkeys, which PETA said was en route to a laboratory in Missouri. “We believe the handling and treatment of monkeys before, during and after the collision may constitute a violation,” PETA Vice President Alka Chandna said in a letter to Robert Gibbens, director of operations. animal rights activism at USDA’s APHIS.
In the laboratories, workers wear personal protective equipment to protect them from bodily fluids, scratches and monkey bites. “Any exposure, such as the one Fallon described, is “handled immediately following rigorous and rigorous procedures to reduce the risk of disease transmission,” says Jones-Engel.
The CDC requires a minimum 31-day quarantine for monkeys after they arrive in the US, she said.
Jones-Engel said about 1.2 million macaques have been imported into the US since 1975. She provided a CDC PowerPoint presentation showing that the number of imported non-human primates has decreased since 2019. through 2020 – China is restricting the number of exports – and many animals are reported dead on arrival and dead during quarantine.
“Ultimately, this didn’t work,” she said. “The monkeys don’t give us treatments, they don’t vaccinate us. All we’re doing is increasing the risk to the population.”
An editorial in Press Enterprise took a different view, suggesting that monkey and primate studies are essential to medical research, including helping “injured soldiers and stroke victims.” stroke regains independence after losing a limb or control over them,” it wrote.
It’s easy to see why so many people sided with the monkeys when they broke open their cages near Danville and fled for their freedom,” the editorial said. They are furry, cute and intelligent animals. And our national laboratories should do everything they can to ensure the minimum number of animals are tested to ensure scientifically valid results. … But if we appreciate the medical progress that non-human primate research has brought, we must also recognize shipments like Friday’s Danville crash as necessary. “
Contribution: Associated Press
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.