Scientists from the Russian Federation have assessed the possibility of transition of the "zombie deer" disease to humans

The currently incurable chronic wasting disease (chronically wasting disease, CWD), also known as the "zombie deer" disease, has already taken the first step towards interspecies transition. This is not a viral but a prion disease, such as mad cow disease, Albert Rizvanov, head of the Center of Excellence "Personalized Medicine" at Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, emphasized in a conversation with Izvestia.

"Since other prion diseases have previously been transmitted from animals to humans, theoretically this possibility exists. So far it has been shown that wild pigs can become infected by eating the corpses of infected deer. So far there are no cases of human CWD infection," the expert said.

Earlier, Michael Osterholm, a leading infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota, said of the risk of the disease passing to humans. According to a report funded by the Department of Natural Resources of this state, there are reports that CWD from deer could have infected wild boars. Therefore, there is a danger that domestic pigs related to wild boars could become ill. Due to the fact that pig cells are similar to human cells, there is an increased risk of transmitting the disease to humans.

"This is a pathology like mad cow disease. A class of such diseases is called spongiform encephalopathy. It develops through a chain reaction from interaction with the wrong protein that enters the body of someone infected with food just as it did with mad cow disease. A prion is a misfolded protein. By contacting its neighbors, the exact same proteins in the brain, it causes them to fold into the wrong shape like itself. And it builds up. There is so little data on the effect of prions on people that there is still a debate about whether heating meat helps to "disinfect" from them," Mikhail Bolkov, a researcher at the Institute of Immunology and Physiology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained to Izvestia.

According to him, there have been cases of hunters being infected with animal prions. It probably depends on the dose and similarity of proteins of different species, as it was with mad cow disease.

Read more in the exclusive material "Izvestia":

Horny experience: scientists from the Russian Federation assessed the possibility of the transition of the disease "zombie deer" to humans