China erects monument for SARS monkeys

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041006/323/f3zro.html



BEIJING (AFP) - Thirty-eight Chinese rhesus monkeys that died in SARS research have had a monument erected in their honor, state media said.

The monument, which is in granite and weighs 16 tonnes, has been set up at the lab animals center of Wuhan University in central Hubei province, Xinhua news agency reported.

"For lab animals that have died for the health of humans," the monument reads, while on the back the inscription goes, "In special memory of the 38 rhesus monkeys that devoted their lives to SARS research."

The text was written by Professor Sun Lihua, a researcher who last year tried to work out a vaccine to fight Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a disease that killed nearly 800 people worldwide last year.