acceptable foods include cooked white rice, fruit-flavored yogurt, and bran cereal. Baboons are particularly fond of yams, fruit-flavored yogurt, and commercially prepared infant formulas.

Ill monkeys are sometimes removed from their social group. As the time away from the group increases, the potential for successful reintroduction to the original group decreases. For very short stays (less than a couple of days), reintroductions are generally not traumatic, provided that aggression was not the initial reason for removal. Careful reintroduction and monitoring of the group for outbreaks of aggression will help safeguard animal well-being. If the animal is out for a long period, reintroduction to the original group might be contraindicated. In some cases, an animal removed for treatment can be housed in a cage within the group pen. That permits access for treatment but at the same time maintains social contacts. Difficulties during reintroduction vary according to species. They are most common in macaques, such as rhesus and crab-eating monkeys, and less in other species, such as baboons.

A number of diseases are transmissible from monkeys to humans and vice versa (Adams and others 1995; CDC 1993; CDC-NIH 1993; NRC 1997a). The most publicized risks involve cercopithecine herpesvirus 1 (Herpesvirus simiae or B virus), which is known to be carried by a high percentage of macaques and may be carried by other Old World monkeys—which produces little outward sign of infection in macaques but is almost always fatal in humans. During the active phase, the virus can be transmitted to humans through bites or scratches. It can also be transmitted to human mucus membranes (e.g., in the eyes) from discharges from various bodily orifices of macaques or other inanimate objects or materials on which disease–producing agents can be conveyed (fomites). The number of recorded human infections is small, considering the number of people working with Old World monkeys, but prudence is certainly in order in the handling of Old World monkeys. Ebola-Reston virus, another disease of Old World monkeys is not known to have caused any morbility in laboratory animal workers (although serum titer conversions have been documented), but the consequences of exposure are severe and prudent precautions must be observed (Adams and others 1995; CDC 1990; CDC-NIH 1993; NRC 1997a). Unlike the macaque, the baboon has no specific disease entity that is considered zoonotic. In both macaques and baboons, bacteria—such as shigellae, salmonellae, staphylococci, and E. coli—are sometimes found and are transmissible to humans.

Of particular significance for Old World monkeys is tuberculosis, which can be transmitted from humans and by other infected monkeys. Although tuberculosis in primates is not reportable to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), except during quarantine (CDC 1993), the most frequently used species (rhesus monkeys and crab-eating macaques) have had the most reports of infections. Tuberculosis is also a possible but less–probable infection in baboons. Primates and all personnel working closely with them should be routinely screened for tuberculosis.

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