Since the end of 2018, a deadly disease that infects deer and turns them into real zombies has been rapidly spreading across the states of the United States and provinces of Canada.
In a new research report, scientists fear the disease could become contagious to humans.
This is the so-called Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a form of spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) that affects the brain.
She is ill with white-tailed deer, moose, caribou, that is, those animals that are very actively hunted in the USA and Canada and then eaten. And often without checking the meat from veterinarians.
A sick animal begins to lose weight and its behavior changes due to brain damage. It becomes aggressive and is not afraid of a person.
In past years, this disease was detected in only two US states, and as of January 2019, it has already actively spread to 24 American states and two Canadian provinces.
The fact that an extremely dangerous Chronic Wasting Disease had appeared in the forests of the United States was warned several years ago and even then they drew analogies with the mad cow disease epidemic, fearing that hunters would begin to massively become infected from the meat of sick deer.
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At the moment, there is no information about the infection of people with this disease, but due to the fact that the epidemic among deer is spreading more and more, such cases are likely to come to light in the near future, experts fear.
A sick deer.
For the first time in the wild, cases of this disease among deer were noted more than 40 years ago. This was mainly in Colorado and Wyoming.
The sick animal looks very thin, with protruding ribs and a meaningless look. It walks slower and resembles classic zombies in all appearance.
This disease can indeed be dangerous to humans. Scientists found this out after experimenting with laboratory macaques by adding contaminated deer meat to their food. The macaques got sick and showed all the symptoms of the disease, like deer.
An experiment was also carried out on mice, which implanted some human genes. The mice got infected too.