Vaccine tests on monkeys risk disease, warns PETA

New Delhi: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has urged the Centre to stop the National Institute of Virology (NIV) from using "deadly tests" for a COVID-19 vaccine on monkeys.

In a letter, calling on the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), PETA India urged the government to stop NIV to leave wild animals in nature and instead use human-relevant and animal-free research methods as required by Indian law.

The letter followed recent reports that the government of Maharashtra has approved the capturing of 30 wild monkeys for the NIV.

Describing that animal tests are often misleading, time-consuming barriers to introducing life-saving drugs, the organisation gave example of governing bodies in India and around the world how they are increasingly moving towards modern, non-animal methods. The US National Institute of Health confirms that more than 95 per cent of all new drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don't work or are dangerous. COVID-19 is largely thought to have first infected humans through wildlife at a Chinese wet market, it said. "In fact, according to the World Health Organization, over 60 per cent of human pathogens are zoonotic (spread from animals to humans)."

Wild monkeys during capture and handling and in a laboratory setting present a significant threat of zoonosis, including herpes B, Kyasanur Forest disease, dengue, tuberculosis, simian immuno-deficiency viruses, and rabies, it said.