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It's a scary title that appears in many forms. The basic badertion that "zombie deer" are spreading in the US and could soon infect humans.
Is it true? Partially. But this is certainly not as serious as "zombie deer" makes it sound.
Here are some examples.
THE QUESTION:
Is there a real disease that makes deer zombies? Are humans at risk of contracting the disease?
THE ANSWER:
Deer have chronic debilitating disease (CWD). The "zombie deer" could be a bit of a hyperbole. There are no known cases of human beings contracting MDC, but the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is concerned that this may change at some point.
WHAT WE HAVE FOUND:
Chronic waste disease is not new. According to the CDC, it was discovered for the first time in a captive deer in the late 1960s and in a wild deer in 1981. The CDC has never found any MDC in humans. So why are people talking about it now? What's scary to everyone?
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, recently told the Minnesota legislature: "It is likely that human cases of illness causing chronic wasting the disease linked to the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the coming years.The number of human cases may be substantial and not an isolated event. "
The CDC discovered in a recent experiment that the disease was infecting squirrel monkeys and laboratory mice carrying human genes.
MDC is a deadly prion disease linked to mad cow disease. Although CWD currently infects only deer, moose, elk and reindeer, it is feared that it will infect and kill humans similar to mad cow disease in the 1990s.
So what is the MDC and why is it called "zombie deer disease"?
CWD damages the brain of the deer, causing it to act abnormally. Some of the symptoms listed by the CDC are: drooling, stumbling, lack of coordination, fear of the human being, apathy and drastic weight loss. These behaviors resemble the common representations of zombies in fiction.
Emily Wood, of the Indiana Wildlife Federation, told the Indy Star that the disease did not show any cure or preventative treatment.
Therefore, once the deer has the disease, death is inevitable. However, that does not mean that death is around the corner. Sometimes it can go on for more than a year before symptoms of the disease appear, says the CDC.
As a result, the CDC recommends that hunters test all deer hunted in infected areas. This represented 251 counties in 24 states and two Canadian provinces in January 2019.
While stations and test locations vary from state to state, a simple Google search of "your zone + CWD test" should give you the appropriate results.
The CDC also recommends that hunters not shoot, handle or eat the meat of a deer that looks sick, behaves strangely or is found dead.
The deer season in affected states can begin in September and end in January.
Although there have been no cases of human CDD infections to date, the CDC wants people to take precautions to prevent someone from becoming the first.
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