Police in a small South Carolina town are looking for 43 monkeys that escaped a research facility. Authorities in Yemassee — which is about 60 miles west of Charleston — said the monkeys escaped the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday, Nov. 6.
The facility uses the monkeys to carry out clinical trials on things like Alzheimer’s and dementia treatments.
In an update on Thursday, Nov. 7, police said the escaped primates are all rhesus macaques. They did not, however, say what trials the monkeys were involved in so it’s unknown if they have been exposed to diseases.
Still, there is cause for concern; macaques are known carriers of the herpes B virus, which can be deadly to humans.
A local newspaper in the county where the monkeys escaped says this is not the first time it’s happened. The Beaufort County Post and Courier said in 2016 that 19 monkeys escaped from the same facility, but they were rounded up about six hours later.
Police have set up traps in the area and say they’re using thermal imagining to help them find the missing monkeys.
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