Chronic wasting disease is a major disease that affects wildlife and remains a major concern to its managers, the disease has been detected in a minimum number of 23 states. It is a prion disease that affects the likes of; elk, deer, moose, reindeer, and sika.
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When an animal gets infected, it could take over a year before an infected animal begins to show any form of symptoms at all. Stumbling, drastic weight loss, listlessness, dropping ears, lack of coordination, and other neurological symptoms are signs to watch out for in an infected animal.
Attempting to diagnose CWD in deer, noose, or elk through these symptoms alone may be rather difficult as these symptoms happen with other diseases as well as malnutrition.
The disease is a progressive, and fatal one that ends up affecting the spinal cord, brain, and other tissues of the farm animal in question. It belongs to a family of the disease called prion disease or TSEs which means, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
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Other forms of TSEs include; bovine spongiform encephalopathy existing in cattle, scrapie found in goats and sheep, and creutzfeldt-jacob disease. Mad cow disease that affects animals (I have written about it before now), also has a form of existence in humans, it is called variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
This infection is believed to be caused by an abnormal type of protein called prions, these prions are known to cause damage to other normal types of prion proteins which can be found in tissues all through the body, but most especially the spinal cord and brain, this will lead to brain damage and development of prion disease.
CWD is believed to be spread among animals who have contact with contaminated tissue and body fluids, it also can be spread in an indirect manner through exposure to the environment through food or water.
If there is a chance of humans getting CWD from animals, it would most likely happen due to the consumption of an infected elk or deer. You will be surprised to know how many people hunt and eat deer or elk, but up to date, there has not been strong evidence to show that humans have CWD.
As you try to decide to consume meat from deer and elk, you should also make up your mind on the level of risk you are working with. For humans to eat deer or elk it must have been brought by a hunter, to reduce the risk of contamination, hunters are advised to follow these appropriate safety guidelines to prevent the spread of disease amongst humans;
Avoid shooting, handling, or eating meat from a deer or an elk that has a sick appearance, or even if they are acting strange and worse of all, found dead.
If you want to field-dress a deer, it is important that you put on rubber or latex gloves, and minimize the level at which you handle the organs of an animal most especially spinal cord tissues or the brain. Then avoid using a household knife or other domestic kitchen utensils for field dressing.
Consider having your elk or deer tested for the presence of CWD before consumption, and if they test positive for CWD, do not consume at all.
References.
cdc.gov/prions/cwd/cwd-animals