Nevada battles ‘zombie’ deer disease that may infect humans

A “ZOMBIE” disease that makes deer become emaciated and more aggressive may sound like the opening to a horror film.

But experts have warned the disease has already been found in 24 US states – and could spread to humans next.

Nevada has now become the latest state trying to prevent the highly contagious disease from taking hold, with experts warning the outbreak could destroy deer and elk populations.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), as it is officially known, makes deer drastically lose weight, struggle to walk,

‘If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he would write about prions like this’

more aggressive and less afraid of human contact.

The illness has been compared to mad cow disease because it is also spread by pathogenic proteins called prions and cause a range of symptoms that resemble dementia and ultimately lead to death.

Prion diseases belong to a family of rare brain diseases that affect both humans and animals, including mad cow disease in cattle and variant Creutzfeldt-jakob disease in humans.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has raised concerns that CWD may also pose a risk to humans.

So, too, has Dr Michael Osterholm – the American expert who warned the UK Government of the risks of mad cow spreading to people in the late

Nineties.

Dr Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told lawmakers that laboratory research suggested it was “probable” that human cases of CWD would occur.

Discussing his experience of mad cow disease being transmitted to humans, Dr Osterholm said it was likely CWD would also occur through eating contaminated meat. “It is possible that the number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events,” he told a hearing with legislators.

He added: “If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he would write about prions like this.”

CWD can incubate for more than a year before animals display the symptoms, so officials recommend that deer hunters test meat before consuming it.

Wildlife experts have warned that, while still rare, the disease is virtually impossible to contain because it is neither viral nor bacterial and can remain in the environment for several years.

Peregrine Wolff, a Nevada department of wildlife veterinarian, said the state’s officials had taken to testing corpses and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with neighbouring Utah for signs of the sickness.

Nevada also introduced a ban earlier this year on bringing certain animal body parts into the state, including the brain and the spinal cord that can contain large concentrations of prions.

But Ms Wolff said despite those efforts, the disease was unlikely to stop at the Nevada state line. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” she said. “We can’t wrap Nevada in a bubble.”