We’re all sick of COVID, but that doesn’t mean viruses take a break from their daily war to evolve and survive. In Yellowstone Park, scientists are worried about what’s being described as a “zombie deer disease,” making the jump to infect humans. If that happens, we’re essentially screwed. There are no treatments or vaccines, and it's 100 percent fatal. What started as a couple of deer dead here and there has spread to other species of elk and moose in 33 states. For now, human infection rests with the consumption of contaminated venison, but like Mad Cow, there’s fear this pathogen could mutate (via NY Post):
Late last year, experts confirmed Yellowstone National Park’s first case of the infection — officially known as chronic wasting disease — after a deer carcass found in the Wyoming area of the park tested positive for the highly contagious disease.
Now, cases have been reported in deer, elk and moose in 33 states across the US, as well as in Canada, Norway and South Korea.
The disease “damages portions of the brain and typically causes progressive loss of body condition, behavioral changes, excessive salivation, and death,” according to the New York State Department of Health.
It is 100% fatal, and there are no treatments or vaccines.
[…]
“The bottom-line message is we are quite unprepared,” Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Minnesota, told KFF Health News earlier this month.
[…]
Sabine Gilch, a researcher at Canada’s University of Calgary, recently explained how mad cow disease, known officially as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, “jumped the transmission barrier from animals to humans.”
“During the BSE crisis, BSE was transmitted through contaminated meat or food products to humans and caused a new form of human prion disease, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” she explained.
While Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is not transmitted person to person by direct contact or airborne spread, scientists believe CWD [chronic wasting disease] could be.
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I’m not a big venison fan, but millions consume this meat daily. Be extra careful, I guess. I hope this is a heightened alert and new data downplays this emerging ‘zombie deer’ virus, but you never know. Unlike some who think Russia is now the greatest evil on Earth, it’s the virus that remains mankind’s single most significant threat to our predominance on the planet—a point lost when Fauci and company decided to lock us in the basement during the COVID insanity.
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