Scientists fear a 100% fatal ‘zombie deer disease’ is evolving to infect people in forests across America

Scientists fear that a nearly 100 percent fatal ‘zombie deer disease’ could develop and infect humans.

Chronic Wasting Disease, as it is also known, is a contagious neurological disease that kills virtually any animal it infects and is spreading rapidly among deer populations in the US.

The disease is caused by misfolded proteins – when proteins do not fold into the correct shape – called prions. After infection, prions travel through the central nervous system, leaving prion deposits in brain tissue and organs.

Recent research have shown that the prions have the ability to infect and multiply in human cells under laboratory conditions – raising the prospect of a spillover.

It is thought that people can contract the disease by eating contaminated deer meat or through contact with contaminated soil and water.

A biologist is shown removing lymph nodes from deer to test them for chronic wasting diseases

Research suggest that it is possible that prions attached to elements of the environment could cause the properties of prions to be altered, including how contagious it is and its potential to infect other species or even humans.

It can take more than a year for an infected animal to develop symptoms, including drastic weight loss, stumbling and lethargy.

It is nicknamed ‘zombie deer disease’ because it causes parts of the brain to slowly degenerate to a spongy consistency and animals will drool and stare blankly before dying. There are no treatments or vaccines.

The exact route of transmission is not yet fully known, but it is believed that the disease is spread from animal to animal by eating feed or water contaminated with infected feces or by exposure to carcasses.

Direct contact, including saliva, blood, urine and even antler velvet during the annual molt, can also contribute to the transmission of the pathogen.

Any deer that dies on a farm should be tested for chronic wasting disease. Because the disease is so contagious, if one animal tests positive, the entire herd is considered infected.

The condition is believed to only infect animals such as deer, elk, reindeer, caribou and moose.

It can take more than a year for an infected animal to develop symptoms

In 2023, a group of 68 researchers from around the world began investigating what would happen if a human spillover occurred.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota and a leading authority on chronic wasting diseases, told KFF Health News: “The message is that we are completely unprepared.

“If we saw an overflow now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans for what to do or how to implement follow-up actions.”

The team prepares for a possible outbreak and investigates laboratory capacity, diagnostics, surveillance, education and outreach.

Although it is thought that transmission could occur through people eating infected meat, people are already exposed to infected deer through hunting and eating.

Tens of thousands of infected animals have been eaten by humans in recent years, and there are no known cases of the disease in humans.

Reports indicate that between 7,000 and 15,000 infected animals were eaten in 2017, and this number is predicted to increase by 20 percent annually.

It is almost impossible to get rid of it, as it is resistant to high temperatures and disinfectants.

The persistence of the disease in the environment means that humans can also be exposed through contaminated soil and water.

In September 2022, researchers at the University of Calgary published the first study showing that “the barrier for chronic wasting disease prions to infect humans is not absolute and there is a real risk that this disease can be transmitted to humans.”

Prion disease attacks proteins in the brain, causing clumps to form before death.

Dr. Sabine Gilch, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Prion Disease Research at the University of Calgary, said: ‘From mad cow disease (also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)), we know that prion diseases can bridge the transmission barrier from animals to disease. people.

‘During the BSE crisis, BSE was transmitted to humans through contaminated meat or food products and caused a new form of human prion disease, the so-called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.’

Chronic wax disease can infect more parts of an animal’s body than other prion diseases such as mad cow disease, meaning the disease is more likely to spread to people who eat deer meat.

Osterholm and his team recently received more than $1.5 million in funding to investigate the possibility of chronic diseases being transmitted to people or pets.

Because deer are so important to native people, numerous tribal groups in Minnesota are working with experts to brainstorm how to manage the disease.

Chronic Wasting Disease was initially discovered in Colorado in 1967 in captive deer, but has now been found in animals in at least 31 states, four Canadian provinces and four other foreign countries.

Other prion diseases, including mad cow disease, have killed more than 200 people, according to the FDA.

Mad cow disease infected people because people ate contaminated beef.