Tests indicate a fifth monkey had been exposed to deadly bacteria that was somehow released from a high-security lab at the Tulane National Primate Research Center near New Orleans, according to an e-mail circulated among federal and state investigators. The monkey, like the others before it, was not part of an experiment. How the dangerous pathogen got out of its lab remains a mystery.

Preliminary tests on a sample taken from the monkey, a rhesus macaque known as IL88, indicates a possible infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei, the potential bioterror bacteria that was being used in vaccine development research elsewhere on the primate center's 500-acre campus in Covington, La.

A confirmation test is being done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results are expected later this week or early next week, Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said Tuesday evening.

Strecker said this fifth macaque, like the others that were confirmed as testing positive in recent weeks, had been in the facility's veterinary hospital around the same time late last year. The hospital is the leading suspect for where the primates were exposed to the bacteria — which was supposed to be securely contained inside a laboratory located in another building on the sprawling campus.

Federal and state officials from multiple health, environmental, agriculture and homeland security agencies have spent weeks trying to determine how the bacteria got out of that secure biosafety level 3 lab – but have not yet determined what happened. Research with the bacteria has been halted as the investigation continues. The CDC has said there is no evidence of a public health threat. The bacteria can cause a potentially fatal disease called melioidosis in humans and animals, with a wide range of non-specific symptoms such as fever, headache and joint pain.

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