United States: The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) declared today that Putnam, Marshall, Adams, and Peoria counties have become new additions to the list of areas affected by chronic wasting disease (CWD).
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IDNR reported the Putnam, Marshall, and Adams cases in February when they found CWD neurologic disease through annual surveillance of deer harvested by hunters, but the Peoria County deer showed symptoms of CWD infection when they were 2 years old.
The discovery of CWD in a deer specimen from Adams County marked the confirmed case outside the northern areas that have historically shown CWD infection in Illinois.
Since its discovery in Winnebago County near Roscoe in 2002, CWD disease has spread across 25 counties that border Wisconsin.
Adams joins twenty-three other Illinois counties that report cases of Chronic Wasting Disease: Boone, Bureau, Carroll, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Ford, Grundy, Jo Daviess, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, McHenry, Ogle, Stephenson, and Will, as cidrap.umn.edu reported.
“Illinois is a national leader in managing and slowing the spread of CWD, and over the past two decades, IDNR’s program has served as a model for other states,” as per IDNR Director Natalie Phelps Finnie, MS.
IDNR conducts a program update
The IDNR conducted a program update to establish a new five-year CWD management plan, which started its execution.
CWD primarily infects deer, elk, and moose while producing symptoms like severe weight loss accompanied by drooling and movement problems that make animals act unconcerned around humans.
Prions known as infectious misfolded proteins create the illness, and they transmit through contact with other animals and environmental contamination.
“While the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not linked CWD to human transmission, they recommend against eating meat from CWD-positive deer,” according to the IDNR, as cidrap.umn.edu reported.
.”Hunters are encouraged to have their deer tested and avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, and other tissues known to harbor the CWD agent,” they added.