Anyone who has watched the Korean movie “Zombie Train” should be familiar with the symptoms of the zombie virus. There may be a recent “zombie deer” epidemic in the United States. Yellowstone National Park confirmed the first case of zombie deer disease. It said that apart from monitoring and continuing investigation, there is nothing that can be done to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Experts estimate that the zombie virus may spread to 31 states.
The official name of this disease is “chronic wasting disease”(chronic wasting disease, CWD), a contagious and fatal disease of deer, elk and moose. Medical experts call chronic wasting disease Prion’s disease, a rare progressive neurological disease in animals. Other Prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as “mad cow disease.”
Prion disease is caused by the infectious protein Prion, which consists of the aggregation of misfolded Prion protein (PrP), which slowly destroys the animal’s brain and nervous system, eventually leading to the death of the host. What scientists are most worried about is thatCWD The incubation period is up to two years, and infected animals appear healthy for a long time before showing symptoms, making it easy to spread the disease to other animals.
CWD Like other prion diseases, it is spread through body fluids and contaminated soil, plants, food or water. Deer infected with zombie viruses often experience symptoms such as dramatic weight loss, stumbling, and lack of fear of people, much like zombies, and there is no treatment or vaccine.
First zombie deer detected in Yellowstone Park
1960 In the late 1990s, the disease was first documented at a Colorado research facility in a captive deer showing symptoms.first known CWD The case occurred in 1980 In Wyoming, although it spread throughout the state, it was not known until now that the virus originated in Yellowstone Park.
2005 Infected in several years CWD Deer escaped from rural areas of upstate New York, causing a zombie deer epidemic in New York. The New York Department of Environmental Protection quickly and aggressively culled them with the help of local hunters, resulting in the killing of hundreds of deer to prevent the outbreak.New York State is the only state where deer, moose and elk populations have been wiped out. CWD state.
The Yellowstone Park Service estimates that black-tailed deer migrating to southeastern Yellowstone during the summer (Mule Deer),make an appointment 10%~15% have CWDas of this year 11 month, united states 31 All states appear CWD deer.Reindeer or moose have also appeared in three Canadian provinces, Norway, Finland and Sweden, as well as a small number of imported cases in South Korea. CWD report. The disease has also been found in farmed deer and elk.
Viruses may infect primates
There have been no cases of human infection, but some studies have found that primates may become sick from exposure to bodily fluids from infected animals.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2021 The report said the studies raised concerns that the virus could be transmitted to people.
However, more research is needed to determine whether people exposed to deer or elk meat are infected with prion disease.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently urges hunters and those who come into contact with deer or elk to wear protective clothing, stay away from animals that appear to be sick, minimize handling of deer internal organs, and handle them before eating them. CWD detection.CDC emphasize, self 1997 Since years, the World Health Organization (WHO) Keep warningit is important to prevent all known prion disease pathogens from entering the human food chain.
(First image source: Pixabay)
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