MINNEAPOLIS – Researchers have found the risk of chronic wasting disease passing from big game to humans is higher than previously thought.
That led to a new initiative to study how the transmission could occur and to find a quick test that can be done immediately after someone shoots a deer to reduce the likelihood of transmission to humans. A response to the threat is ramping up, with 68 global experts coming together on the initiative.
The University of Minnesota’s Michael Osterholm, says while this is still just a potential, they don’t want to be caught off guard. He says, “We have to understand that if we do have a spillover, we’re going be way at the end of the curve, you might say, in terms of what we could do about it.”
First discovered in 1967, chronic wasting disease has been found in animals in at least 32 states. Difficult to eradicate, it causes brain deterioration before the infected animal dies.
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