The nickname is chilling: “zombie deer disease.” Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a prion disease seen in deer, elk, and other cervids. Prions are proteins that misfold in the brain and initiate a cascade of neurodegeneration. The symptoms of CWD are creepy: chronic drooling, weight loss, lethargy, and a distinct vacant stare – hence the nickname “zombie deer disease”.
The bigger scare? The possibility of CWD crossing over to people. Though no cases of crossing the species barrier have been recorded, scientists cannot rule out the possibility of CWD. The instability hangs heavily over the wildlife agencies and the public health officials’ shoulders.
The one that is blamed for chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a tough infectious agent called prions. In contrast to bacteria or viruses, prions are very hard to destroy. They’re chemically resistant, high temperature tolerant, and can handle even radiation. This creates a daunting task when it comes to containment of the CWD disease.
The prions of CWD are excreted in the saliva, feces, and body fluids of a sick animal. Healthy animals can contract the disease if they consume contaminated food or water or via contact with dead and infected carcasses or soil. The illness advances gradually. Oftentimes, sick animals may not exhibit symptoms for months or even years. Symptoms of the disease mostly show up when the animal is close to death.
The spreading of CWD anywhere on the world level is an issue now. The first time it was found in free-living mule deer in Colorado was in the 1960s. CWD has gradually transmitted this illness to most parts of North America. Statistics are available in a wide range of states and Canadian provinces. Only not long ago did CWD evoke attention in South Korea and Norway. From then on, the prediction of a worldwide crisis impact started.
The CWD disease was a real concern among humans and human-disease-transmission-related issues, due to its social enormity and the implications of being a disease. The scientometric research of CWD has not established whether or not the condition can be transmitted from CWD-infected animals to humans. But, In this connection, there are other prion diseases, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in cattle and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (SE), which are linked to a human disease. It led officials responsible for public health to a cautious strategy.
In support of this, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stipulates these healthy eating guidelines; ensuring hunters do not consume meat from sick-looking animals. Furthermore, they would suggest that hunters thoroughly wipe any knife and non-porous material that could have touched infected tissue.
In states with CWD, mandatory testing for the animals that have been harvested is deemed as a way to manage the disease. These programs are to detect infected animals and ensure the meat from the slave becomes a thing of human food.
The wave of CWD remains nebulous. Scientists work around the clock to make the fight against this disease easier by trying to detect it in the early stages before the symptoms set in, create a vaccine, and eventually eliminate it. In the meantime, wildlife offices and public health officials are meeting and developing approaches to the expansion of CWD and decreasing human conditions.
Although the possibility that CWD can spread to humans gets the label “theoretical”, scientists are dealing with this challenge in a very serious manner. Continued studies and conducting a thorough investigation become the keys to success in preventing depleting wildlife populations and posing a risk to human health.
