Lto zombie deer diseasealso called “chronic wasting disease“, seems to have many characteristics in common with the one that caused alarm throughout the world in the 1990s: the “mad cow” disease. Both, in fact, are neurodegenerative diseases linked to the degradation of the “prion”, an infectious protein particle one hundred times smaller than the smallest virus, discovered by the American neurologist Stanley B. Prusiner in the 70s thanks to which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1997. But who does it affect? How does it manifest itself? Can it spread to people? Here’s what you need to know.
Zombie deer disease: how it manifests itself
As he explains toAdnkronos Health the Professor Matteo Bassetti, director of infectious diseases at the San Martino polyclinic hospital in Genoa«it could be a pathology prions somewhat similar to what we already know as the mad cow disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome and kuru disease (a form of dementia found only in the highlands of New Guinea and due to cannibalism).” But there are those who also associate the prion with Parkinson’s disease et al Alzheimer’s disease.
What are the causes
Zombie deer disease is caused, like mad cow disease, by a prion, a “mutated” protein molecule capable of infecting other proteins by transforming them in its image. If it hits a deer, it is destined to die because there are no cures or vaccines. The symptoms are easily identifiable: the infected animal drools, moves slowly, stumbles, is lethargic and its gaze is fixed and glassy. That’s why they call it zombie deer disease.
Zombie deer disease. Why is it called that?
The zombie deer disease, which has deadly effects in infected specimensi, has been under close observation for some years Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States. «It is a pathology that makes cervids (deer and elk) lose weight which later show a ‘zombie’ attitude because they have walking problems. Where it occurred, in the USA, deer meat should not be eaten”, comments the expert.
Where it is spreading
For now it has affected especially in North America, Canada, where hundreds of deer are falling victim to chronic wasting disease (CWD), better known as zombie deer disease. But other cases have been reported in Scandinavia and in North Korea.
Can it make the “species leap”?
The zombie deer disease has also arrived in recent years Yellowstone, where there is the highest concentration of cervids on the American continent. The fear of CDC (the agencyia USA which deals with disease control and prevention) is that it can spread throughout the ecosystem, and also accomplish the spillover (species jump) to other hitherto immune mammals and perhaps also to humans.
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