Lucknow, India: A troop of monkeys in India has attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for coronavirus.
The attack occurred this week when a laboratory technician was walking in the campus of a state-run medical college in Meerut, 460 kilometres north of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
"Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment ... we had to take their blood samples again," said Dr SK Garg, a top official at the college.
Authorities said they were not clear if the monkeys had spilt the blood samples, but people living near the leafy campus feared further spread of the virus if the monkeys carried the samples into residential areas.
arg said it was not clear if the animals could contract the virus if they came into contact with infected blood.
"No evidence has been found that monkeys can contract the infection," Garg said.
The virus is believed to have jumped from animals to people late last year in a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Monkeys have been increasingly straying into human settlements in India and causing disturbances, even attacking people. Environmentalists say the destruction of natural habitat is the main reason the animals move into urban areas in search of food.
India has had 165,799 cases of coronavirus and 4706 deaths.
Elsewhere, South Korea reported 39 new cases of the coronavirus, most of them in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where officials have found more than a hundred infections linked to warehouse workers.
Figures from South Korea's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national totals to 11,441 cases and 269 deaths. At least 12 of the new cases were linked to international arrivals.
China reported four new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, all brought from outside the country and no new deaths.
Just 63 people remained in treatment and another 401 were under isolation and monitoring for showing signs of having the virus or of testing positive for it without showing any symptoms.
China has reported a total of 4634 deaths among 82,999 cases since the virus was first detected.
And the United Nations Secretary-General has announced the deaths of two UN peacekeepers from COVID-19 in Mali, the first among peacekeeping forces.
Antonio Guterres made the announcement at a ceremony Friday, which was the International Day of UN Peacekeepers. The UN said one was from Cambodia and the other from El Salvador.
Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost everything, but not "the service, sacrifice and selflessness" of the more than 95,000 men and women serving in the UN's 13 peacekeeping missions around the world.
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