A NEW home is being prepared for Ying-ho, the monkey kept for 12 years by the Department of Health's virus-diagnosing centre at Queen Mary Hospital.
Pending government inspection and a permit, the animal will join three others housed at a drug addicts' treatment centre on Shek Kwu Chau, south of Lantau.
After the South China Morning Post revealed Ying-ho's plight last week, the East Asia division of UK charity Zoocheck was flooded with more than 100 calls when it pledged to try to find a home for him.
Ying-ho has been kept in a cage just big enough for him to turn round in since he was born to one of 40 monkeys imported by the department in 1983.
The monkeys were killed so that doctors could use their kidneys for medical research.
The last monkey was killed last year and Ying-ho faced death this summer because he was becoming too expensive and difficult to keep, even though improved technology meant his kidneys were no longer essential for diagnostic work.
But a cage among trees should be ready in about a month at the Shek Kwu Chau centre, said deputy superintendent Peter Wu Man-ying.