Melioidosis, a bacterial infection, was responsible for killing at least nine monkeys at a Hong Kong zoo, authorities said, as a further two died over the weekend, taking the total to 11 in the past week. <\/p>\n
Part of the zoo, built in 1860 and the oldest park in Hong Kong, has remained shut since October 14 when authorities reported the first batch of monkey deaths. <\/p>\n
Housed in five separate cages, the deceased monkeys included the De Brazza species as well as one common squirrel monkey, cotton-top tamarins and white-faced sakis. <\/p>\n
Authorities said nine monkeys died of sepsis after catching melioidosis. Autopsies found a large amount of the melioidosis-inducing bacteria in the monkeys organs, which likely came from soil near the monkeys habitat, they said. <\/p>\n
Further tests are needed to determine the cause of death of the latest two monkeys. <\/p>\n
Kevin Yeung, the city\u2019s culture and tourism minister, told local public broadcaster RTHK that works at the zoo required digging up the soil near where the monkeys lived. <\/p>\n
Workers were then believed to have brought contaminated soil into the cage through their shoes, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have cordoned off the whole mammals section for the time being, so there will be no sort of contact between normal citizens with the animals,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The bacteria is particularly common in moist clay soil. Even though it can affect both humans and animals, it is unlikely to be passed from animals to humans, authorities said. <\/p>\n
The zoo, located just above the city\u2019s financial centre and near government house, houses around 158 birds, 70 mammals and 21 reptiles in about 40 enclosures. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Melioidosis, a bacterial infection, was responsible for killing at least nine monkeys at a Hong…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}