Corona vaccination experiment: No clue to missing monkey

LAHORE:The University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences (UVAS) administration has failed to find a monkey who had fled the university’s campus on Wednesday afternoon.

Sources said the UVAS had brought some monkeys for trials related to preparation of coronavirus vaccine and, during on-campus transportation, one of the monkeys managed to flee from the university premises. Hours later the monkey was spotted by locals near the Sports Complex in Sant Nagar area. They called Rescue 1122. However, the monkey escaped once again and fled towards Baba Ground, Krishan Nagar area, jumping rooftops of houses. A local, Bashir Shah, said the entire episode caused quite a concern among residents of the area as they feared the monkey could cause harm to someone. “So they called 1122 but the monkey managed to escape,” he said while adding, the monkey was last seen fleeing towards the Krishan Nagar area crossing Chistia Park behind Punjab Civil Secretariat.

Saqib, another local, said that the monkey had head injury and really needed medical treatment but, unfortunately, no one could catch him. A UVAS official said that a special state-of-the-art facility was set up at the campus to house the monkeys brought to the UVAS in connection with Covid-19 vaccine development. He said the Punjab Wildlife Department had provided the monkeys to the university for experimentation. He said the staff looking after the monkeys was also equipped with tranquillizer guns (dart guns) and it was strange the monkey escaped.

It is pertinent to mention here that the UVAS has been working on the Covid-19 vaccine development and in earlier experiments a rabbit was injected with the coronavirus vaccine. After the successful phase I, now the university has been conducting experiments on monkeys.

Reportedly, Punjab government has already agreed to allocate a fund of Rs 100 million to the UVAS for the preparation of the vaccine. The UVAS official said if experiments were successful, Pakistan would be able to produce its own coronavirus vaccine. The official said the UVAS administration should launch an inquiry and hold those responsible for the monkey’s escape. When contacted, Prof Dr Tahir Yaqub, a senior faculty member of UVAS, said that the monkey was spotted within the campus on Thursday and claimed that it would be caught soon. The whereabouts of the missing monkey were unknown till filing of this report.