Fifth monkey has signs of deadly bacteria in lab mishap

Alison Young | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Deadly bacteria released at Louisiana high-security lab USA TODAY​'s Shannon Rae Green interviews investigative reporter Alison Young about the latest incident in a series of security lapses at bio labs across the country.

Tests indicate a fifth monkey had been exposed to deadly bacteria that was somehow released from a high-security lab at the Tulane National Primate Research Center near New Orleans, according to an e-mail circulated among federal and state investigators. The monkey, like the others before it, was not part of an experiment. How the dangerous pathogen got out of its lab remains a mystery.

Preliminary tests on a sample taken from the monkey, a rhesus macaque known as IL88, indicates a possible infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei, the potential bioterror bacteria that was being used in vaccine development research elsewhere on the primate center's 500-acre campus in Covington, La.

A confirmation test is being done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results are expected later this week or early next week, Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said Tuesday evening.

Strecker said this fifth macaque, like the others that were confirmed as testing positive in recent weeks, had been in the facility's veterinary hospital around the same time late last year. The hospital is the leading suspect for where the primates were exposed to the bacteria — which was supposed to be securely contained inside a laboratory located in another building on the sprawling campus.

Federal and state officials from multiple health, environmental, agriculture and homeland security agencies have spent weeks trying to determine how the bacteria got out of that secure biosafety level 3 lab – but have not yet determined what happened. Research with the bacteria has been halted as the investigation continues. The CDC has said there is no evidence of a public health threat. The bacteria can cause a potentially fatal disease called melioidosis in humans and animals, with a wide range of non-specific symptoms such as fever, headache and joint pain.

Louisiana state officials have expressed concerns that the bacteria, which can live and grow in soil and water, has contaminated the environment outside the facility. Two of the initially infected animals became ill in November while living in large outdoor cages in a massive breeding colony on the campus that houses 4,000 animals. Although a limited number of soil and water tests have not detected the bacteria outdoors, USA TODAY reported Sunday that studies indicate that too few samples were taken to detect what can be an elusive bacterium. Tulane says it believes the soil testing was adequate because samples were taken in areas where monkeys perch and their waste falls.

Tulane officials have said that the two macaques that became ill outdoors and ultimately had to be euthanized may have been ill from something else before going to the hospital and becoming infected with the bacteria. The two other macaques that tested positive never showed signs of illness and were in the hospital around the same time because of injuries.

The fifth monkey, IL88, which tested positive in a preliminary test, was admitted to the veterinary hospital on Dec. 30 for treatment of injuries and was cared for in the same treatment room as the two infected and two exposed animals before the hospital was decontaminated, according to an e-mail the CDC sent this week to agencies involved in the investigation. By Feb. 23, the macaque had developed two ulcers on its abdomen, which were cultured. The animal was euthanized. The preliminary test result indicating infection with the bacteria came back in recent days, the e-mail says.

So far, 342 blood samples have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were taken from macaques that spent time in the veterinary hospital or in the breeding colony. Results are back on 159 of those tests and only five of them showed evidence of exposure to the bacteria, Strecker said Wednesday.

For full coverage of the Tulane lab incident and other articles in USA TODAY's ongoing investigation of lab safety and security, go to: biolabs.usatoday.com

Follow USA TODAY investigative reporter Alison Young on Twitter: @alisonannyoung