A "strong scientific case" exists for continuing to allow research to be conducted on monkeys, a working group of experts has concluded.
The Weatherall Report said experiments on non-human primates were justified when this was the only way of answering important scientific questions of benefit to human health.
At the same time the experts accepted there were some cases where the availability of other approaches weakened the argument in favour of using monkeys in research.
Each year around 3,300 monkeys are involved in scientific or medical research in the UK - about 0.1% of all the animals used in the laboratory. Three-quarters of these animals are used for testing the safety of new medicines.
Experiments on great apes, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, are expressly forbidden in Britain. But many believe monkeys are sufficiently sentient to be capable of great suffering at the hands of scientists.
The working group, chaired by Oxford geneticist Professor Sir David Weatherall, was set up by the Royal Society Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and the Academy of Medical Sciences to investigate the ethics of primate research.
Since the inquiry began in March last year, the committee has had 10 meetings and heard evidence from 35 witnesses, including representatives of academic organisations, animal welfare groups, the Government and industry, as well as patients.
Tuesday's report highlights the continuing need for monkeys in the laboratory to address questions related to the immune, nervous and reproductive systems that cannot be answered using rodents and other animals which are too unlike humans.
Monkey research provided the only way of ensuring the safety and effectiveness of vaccines for HIV and other infections, and treatments for brain diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
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The experts wrote: "There is a strong scientific case for maintaining work on non-human primates for carefully selected research problems in many of the areas studied, at least for the foreseeable future."
