A lucrative underground trade risks undermining research, creating new pandemics and pushing a recently abundant species to the brink
In 2019, Jonah Sacha, a researcher at Oregon Health and Science University, received a delivery of 20 monkeys from Mauritius. As part of his research into stem-cell transplants as an HIV treatment, he performs tests on long-tailed macaques.
The captive-bred monkeys were legally imported using an approved vendor, and looked healthy. However, when Sacha tested them, one appeared to have latent tuberculosis (TB).
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