Abstract

There are significant issues challenging the institutions that operate a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quarantine facility. Transfer of nonhuman primates from one country to another is an important activity in providing nonhuman primates for captive breeding, exhibition in zoological parks and use in research. It is also a practice that is facing increasing complexity and challenges from emerging diseases and a changing regulatory environment. These challenges fall into three categories. The first is represented by pathogens that have been long recognized as a threat to both human and nonhuman primates. Screening for tuberculosis continues to be a significant challenge to quarantine facilities and outbreaks of tuberculosis continue to occur post-quarantine screening.¹ The second challenge is represented by new potential pathogens that have not been recognized previously or may be subclinical infections. The occurrence of the Reston Ebola infection in the late 1980s represented a new virus from a different geographic region. This agent had dramatic impacts on quarantine practices as well as regulatory oversight of quarantine. Simian retroviruses also represent infectious agents that can have a negative impact on breeding programs and can be difficult to detect.² The final challenge to nonhuman primate quarantine is from infectious agents that may not naturally occur in nonhuman primates, but may still impact the transport of nonhuman primates. This last situation occurred in 2003, when the spread of the SARS virus in China resulted in temporary suspension of all animal transport in and out of China.³ The quarantine of newly imported nonhuman primates will continue to be an essential part of good primate colony management, as well as a regulatory requirement of the CDC.

Literature Cited

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2.  Lerche, N.W. and K.G. Osborn. 2003. Simian retrovirus infections: potential confounding variables in primate toxicology studies. Toxicologic Pathology. 31(Suppl 1):1–11.

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