COVID-19 Vaccine Research Is Facing a Monkey Shortage - The Atlantic

COVID-19 Vaccine Research Is Facing a Monkey Shortage - The Atlantic

Monkey shortage hampers US drug efforts

Testing in monkeys is a crucial final step before starting human trials of COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, but in the United States the well has run dry. Testing of these drugs and vaccines has increased global demand, and China, which supplied 60% of the nearly 35,000 monkeys imported for research in the United States last year, stopped exporting them. US researchers are left vying for permission to do monkey testing at primate research centers run by the National Institutes of Health, but most are turned down. “I have to tell them, ‘I’m sorry, we are not allowed to start your research,’” says infectious-disease researcher Koen Van Rompay, who runs one of the centers.
The Atlantic | 8 minutes