Chronic Wasting Disease

What are the symptoms of CWD?

Deer and elk can be infected with CWD for months or years before clinical signs appear. If deer and elk survive to reach the terminal stages of infection, they will show signs of progressive weight loss, excessive salivation and urination, increased water intake and depression. Other noticed changes include decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, blank facial expression, and repetitive walking in set patterns. The brains of animals with advanced stages of CWD may have a spongy appearance to their brain when examined through a microscope. This is the result of the disease agent causing holes in the brain.

How is CWD spread?

CWD is a prion disease. Prions are misfolded proteins that cause normal proteins in the brain to misfold, leading to brain damage and death. CWD is not spread through traditional pathogens like bacteria or viruses, but rather through these abnormal prions. Here are the main ways CWD spreads:​​​

• Direct Contact: CWD is transmitted through direct animal-to-animal contact and indirectly through environmental contamination from feces, urine, saliva, and infected carcasses.
  
• Environmental Contamination: CWD prions can survive in the environment, binding with the soil or being taken up by plant tissues and remaining infectious. This means that CWD can infect future generations of deer and elk in Kentucky.
  
• Scavenger animals (such as crows and coyotes) that feed on CWD-infected deer and elk carcasses can spread CWD prions through their own feces.
  
• Movement of CWD-infected animals can increase the range of the disease over a greater area. Live animals moved by owners of captive deer or harvested deer or elk carcasses moved by hunters pose risks for spreading CWD.
  

Does CWD affect people or other animals?

CWD is an always fatal disease that infects and white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, caribou and moose.

No evidence suggests that CWD can infect humans. However, the CDC recommends that people should not consume meat from an animal that has tested positive for CWD.

Hunters should follow routine safety precautions when handling, processing, and consuming meat from harvested game:

• Do not harvest, handle, or consume any animal found sick or dead.
• Wear disposable gloves when field dressing, processing, or handling harvested game.
• Avoid or minimize handling of the brain and spinal tissue.
• Don’t split the backbone.
• When field dressing and processing an animal, bone-out all meat and avoid severing bones.
• Wash hands thoroughly with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds after handling harvested game.
• Cook meat from harvested game to an internal temperature of 165°F or higher to kill any present viruses, bacteria, or parasites.
  
• Do not eat raw or undercooked meat from harvested game.
• Do not feed dogs raw or undercooked meat from harvested game or allow them to scavenge on carcasses.
• Clean and disinfect all tools, materials, and surfaces that come into contact with harvested game.​

More Information​ About CWD

• Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance (CWD-INFO.ORG)​
• National Wildlife Health Center - U.S. G​eological Survey
• Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service - U.S. Department of Agriculture
• The National Deer Association - Chronic Wasting Disease
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