Scientists are issuing a warning that the “Zombie deer disease” might spread to humans, given the increasing cases across the United States.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), which induces listlessness, jitteriness, drooling, and a zombie-like stare in infected animals, has now reached 32 US states and four Canadian provinces, as per the United States Geological Survey.
“We’re dealing with a disease that is invariably fatal, incurable and highly contagious,” Dr Cory Anderson, the co-director of a CWD programme at University of Minnesota, told The Guardian.
“Baked into the worry is that we don’t have an effective, easy way to eradicate it, neither from the animals it infects nor the environment it contaminates.”
The deadly disease has surfaced in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Nebraska, with over 40 counties reporting cases, and it has been identified in 800 samples of deer, elk, and moose in Wyoming.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, the US epidemiologist who previously alerted Britain about the risks of mad cow disease, is expressing concern that CWD’s spread in the US could evolve into a “slow-moving disaster” with the potential for human transmission. In 2019, Dr. Osterholm informed politicians that laboratory research indicated the “probable” occurrence of human cases of CWD in the future.
