Chronic Wasting Disease

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), an unusual fatal disease, is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (Williams and Young 1980). A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy is distinguishable by a cellular protein prion to a protease isoform, which is abnormal and insoluble (Mathiason et al 2006). The disease was first seen in Colorado captive deer in 1967 (Williams and Young 1980). It is exhibited in several ungulates specifically in family Cervidae such as deer, elk (Williams 2005) and moose (Baeten et al 2007). Geographical distribution of CWD spans in 2 provinces in Canada and in 14 states (Mathiason 2006). The disease does not solely and selectively affect one age and sex group nor is season specific (Williams and Young 1980). Females, males and castrates are able to contract the disease (Williams and Young 1980). Chronic Wasting Disease causes physical and behavioural problems. Physical effects includes but not limited to weight loss, loss of appetite, uncontrolled salivation, excessive thirst and urination, bruxism, reduce facial and esophageal muscle strength and dysphagia (Williams and Young 1980). Behavioural effects include lack of situational awareness, slow motor response and depression (Williams and Young …show more content…
Chronic Wasting Disease has affected deer population which raises concern of hunting game management which is a current research topic (Potapov et al 2016). With the numerous amounts of past research of CWD, current research focuses on modes of transmission and prion pathways between different ungulate herds (Moore et al 2016, Samuel and Storm 2016, Hoover et al 2017). In addition, research focuses on the impacts of culling on CWD and potential of transmission to other ungulate species (Waddell 2017, Moore