(NewsNation) — A neurological infection rapidly spreading in deer causing “zombielike” symptoms could potentially be a risk to humans.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a deadly neurological illness that is only known to affect deer, elk, moose, reindeer, and muntjac and is spread by misfolded natural proteins called prions.
While there is no strong evidence CWD can infect humans, some research has shown that the disease could pose a risk to people if they eat infected meat or have contact with sick animals.
The study notes that the disease can infect more parts of an animal’s body than other prion diseases, which could make it more likely to spread to people who eat deer.
Since February, CWD has been reported in animals in at least 32 states and four Canadian provinces, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is always fatal in infected animals, and there is no vaccine or treatment.
Researchers studying the illness, first discovered in 1967, are working on a potential outbreak. They are focusing on public health surveillance, lab capacity, prion disease diagnostics, surveillance of livestock and wildlife, risk communication and outreach, reported Daily Montanan.
“The bottom-line message is we are quite unprepared,” Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Minnesota, told the outlet. “If we saw a spillover right now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans for what to do or how to follow up.”
Osterholm and a coalition of experts are very concerned about the possibility the disease could pass to humans, the outlet reported.
Experts have referred to symptoms in the infected animals as being “zombielike,” including emaciation, excessive salivation, lack of muscle coordination, difficulty in swallowing, excessive thirst and excessive urination, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife.
“Cooking doesn’t kill prions…cooking concentrates the prions,” Osterholm told the Daily Montanan.
Between 7,000 and 15,000 infected animals are unknowingly consumed by hunter families annually, the outlet reported.
The prion-based disease is also difficult to detect because it has a long incubation period, so those who are infected may not contract the resulting disease until many years later, according to the University of Pennsylvania.
Other prion illnesses are mad cow disease in domestic cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
Animal researchers say increased testing, including rapid tests of deer and other cervid carcasses, is the key to preventing the illness, according to the Daily Montanan.
Researchers have developed a way for hunters to do their own testing, though it can take weeks for results. There’s hope for, within the next two years, a test that will reduce the wait time to three to four hours, the outlet reported.