A highly-contagious and deadly animal brain disorder, chronic wasting disease (CWD), which is related to mad-cow disease, has been detected in North America for the first time. “The $64,000 question is what is the origin of this case of CWD in Europe,” says Glenn Telling, a prion-disease researcher at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The virus was found affecting the brain of a wild reindeer that had died. Although the disease is not known to be transmitted to humans, it is highly contagious among elk, deer and related animals, which can shed infectious prion proteins in their saliva, urine and faeces. “If it’s similar to our prion disease in Canada and the United States , the disease is subtle and it would be easy to miss,” says Christina Sigurdson , a pathologist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research .
A highly-contagious and deadly animal brain disorder, chronic wasting disease (CWD), which is related to mad-cow disease, has been detected in North America for the first time. The virus was found affecting the brain of a wild reindeer that had died. Although the disease is not known to be transmitted to humans, it is highly contagious among elk, deer and related animals, which can shed infectious prion proteins in their saliva, urine and faeces. “If it’s similar to our prion disease in Canada and the United States , the disease is subtle and it would be easy to miss,” says Christina Sigurdson , a pathologist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research .