Animal health officials in Texas yesterday announced that chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been detected in deer at farms in two more counties, Hamilton in the central part of the state and Frio in the south.
Both detections involved deer-breeding facilities, according to a statement from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Animal Health Commission. The groups said the Hamilton County detection involved a single case from a live animal that was tested to see if it could be transferred to a registered release site. The Frio County detection came from routine postmortem surveillance sampling after the death of a deer.
The samples were sent to the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, with results confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Texas officials said antemortem testing provides a baseline that can clarify where outbreaks originate and that early, proactive testing can greatly cut the risk of further spread.
CWD was first detected in Texas in 2012 and has since been found in captive and free-ranging cervids. The new detections follow a March announcement of similar detections in three separate deer-breeding facilities in Zavala, Washington, and Gonzales counties.
Highly contagious and always fatal, CWD affects cervids such as deer, elk, moose, and caribou. The disease has a long incubation period, so the first sign of infection may be through testing rather than clinical signs. CWD is a prion disease similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease). So far, CWD hasn't been detected in humans, but health officials recommend against eating meat from infected animals.