In November 2014, five monkeys at a high security primate facility were accidentally exposed to or infected with a bacteria called Burkholderia pseudomallei. A federal inspector at the facility has tested positive for the bacteria, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that it appears that person was exposed during previous travel abroad to places where the disease is endemic.
Because of the incident, research has been suspended at the Tulane National Primate Research Center, located about 40 miles north of New Orleans. It is possible that the infectious organism escaped the facility because two of the ill rhesus macaque monkeys had been in an outside enclosure. But the monkeys may have been ill with something else and may have been exposed to B. pseudomallei when they were brought inside to be treated. It is still not known how the monkeys came to be infected.
The inspector, who was investigating the incident for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, became ill after her inspection of the facility in January. An antibody test done then showed that she had been exposed to B. pseudomallei, but later tests showed that antibody levels against the disase had not grown, which means that her exposure is an old one. The disease is endemic in Southeast Asia and Australia and is found in soil there.
The center is working on a vaccine against B. pseudomallei, but with rodents. The laboratory where this work is done is a biosafety level 3 lab, which means it works with agents that can cause serious disease if inhaled. Biosafety levels range from 1 to 4, with 4 being the one where the most dangerous infectious agents are studied. The veterinary hospital where the monkeys were treated is at a distance from the lab where the research on B. pseudomallei is being done.
B. pseudomallei is a bacterium that can infect humans and animals. In humans, it causes a disease call melioidosis, which can have a high mortality rate.
This incident is the latest in a series of accidents with pathogenic organisms at U.S. laboratories. Last summer, the federal government called for a review of safety and security procedures at federally funded laboratories that study pathogens.