HEIDELBERG, Miss. — Tulane officials reiterated Wednesday that monkeys missing in Mississippi after a truck crash didn't belong to the university and a team it sent to help following the accident was on-site only to assist.

The university said its National Biomedical Research Center provides "nonhuman primates" to other research organizations to benefit science. Mississippi officials say a vehicle transporting 21 Rhesus macaques crashed Tuesday. Three were still at large Wednesday. Others were destroyed.

"The nonhuman primates were not being transported by Tulane, not owned by Tulane, and not in Tulane’s custody," university spokeswoman Stacey Plaisance said Wednesday. "The primates in question were not carrying any diseases and had received recent checkups confirming that they were pathogen-free."

Tulane says the monkeys are used to improve human and animal health through various means of research. The university didn't say who owned the animals at the time of the crash. 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the animals' escape from a laboratory setting was dangerous.

"Terrified monkeys running for their lives into unprotected, populated areas is exactly the spark that could ignite the next pandemic," PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo said in a statement. "It’s also a tragedy for the monkeys, whose only moments of freedom before death were the result of a truck crash."