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Scientists fear the spread of a new ghastly-sounding disease that is fit for a horror movie.

A “zombie deer disease” is taking hold of the antlered animals all over the US and scientists are afraid it may evolve to infect humans.

I don’t want to make a joke in these freaky times, but, oh, deer.

After a deer carcass found in the Wyoming area of the park tested positive for the highly contagious disease late last year, experts confirmed Yellowstone National Park’s first case of the infection, officially known as chronic wasting disease, per The New York Post:

The disease “damages portions of the brain and typically causes progressive loss of body condition, behavioral changes, excessive salivation and death,” according to the New York State Department of Health.

Deer, elk and moose in 33 states across the US, as well as in Canada, Norway and South Korea have been confirmed to have the deadly disease.

Who had “zombie deer disease” on their 2024 BINGO card? https://t.co/92bMys40Vy

— Woke Messiah 🟧🌈💔🏴‍☠️🧙‍♂️💉 (@MessiahWoke) February 20, 2024

Frighteningly, there are no treatments or vaccines for this 100% fatal disease. Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Minnesota, says “The bottom-line message is we are quite unprepared”.

“If we saw a spillover right now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans for what to do or how to follow up.”

Thankfully, there are currently no known cases of the disease in humans, even though up to 15,000 infected deer and elk are thought to be eaten each year, which is the most likely way humans could contract the disease.

However, there is concern that the disease may mutate. That’s because CWD is caused by misfolded proteins known as prions, and another prion disease first found in animals has evolved to infect humans before.

Sabine Gilch, a researcher at Canada’s University of Calgary, recently explained how mad cow disease, known officially as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, “jumped the transmission barrier from animals to humans.”

“During the BSE crisis, BSE was transmitted through contaminated meat or food products to humans and caused a new form of human prion disease, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” she explained.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is not transmitted person to person by direct contact or airborne spread, but scientists reckon CWD could be. This theory was proven with “humanised” mouse models, who were injected with CWD isolated from infected deer.

Gilch and her team found that the mice developed CWD and were even found to shed infectious prions in faeces.

This implies that CWD in humans might be contagious and transmit from person to person, Gilch warned.

[source:nypost]