Research, Technology

In Russia, they found "roe deer zombies". What is known about them?

If you have seen the movie "Train to Busan" (2016), thenyou probably remember the zombie deer, which is hit by a truck at the very beginning. The deer looked pretty creepy, and when the media reported on the mysterious disease of these animals in Canada and the US in 2019, an image from a Korean horror movie seemed to circle the entire Internet. But the reality, as is often the case, is worse than any horror - animals infected with a chronic wasting disease look and behave like real zombies. As symptoms develop, the deer run onto the tracks, are not afraid of people (which is strange), lose their coordination of movements, and even walk through the forest with open wounds. Fortunately, real zombies do not exist, unlike dangerous infectious agents that turn the brains of their victims into a sponge. In 2021, “deer zombies” appeared in Norway and Finland, and, apparently, made their way to Russia. Recently, strange behavior of animals was reported in the Urals, and veterinarians have not yet been able to identify the causative agent of the infection.

Shot from the film "Train to Busan"

Content

  • 1 Chronic wasting disease
  • 2 What happens to the deer?
  • 3 Roe deer zombies in Russia
  • 4 What do deer and roe deer get sick with?

chronic wasting disease

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) -a fatal neurological disease that occurs in almost all representatives of the deer family. Since its discovery in 1967, the CWD has begun its march through the countries, hitting more and more animals. The causative agent of the disease are prions - the most dangerous infectious agents, which are "turned inside out proteins" that spread in the brain. CWD is extremely contagious – the pathogen is freely transmitted within and between deer populations, and there is no cure for the disease.

In addition to CWD in deer, there are prion diseaseshurting a person. So, in 2021, France introduced a three-month moratorium on the study of these abnormal proteins after one of the laboratory employees contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (“mad cow disease”) and died six months after the diagnosis.

Human prion diseases also include neurodegenerative diseases such as kuru disease and Gerstmann-Stressler-Scheinker disease (GSS), which are fortunately rare.

Prions turn brain tissue into a sponge

Worrying is the fact that diseasesAlzheimer's and Parkinson's also belong to the prion class and are more common. In addition to humans and deer, these infectious agents infect cattle and belong to the class of so-called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

More on the topic: The latest pandemic: how are coronavirus and prion diseases related?

Today, chronic wasting disease causesconcern among wildlife experts. The fact is that CWD is transmitted through direct contact with objects or contaminated environment (including the corpses of infected animals, their saliva, urine and feces).

What happens to the deer?

The widely publicized so-called "diseasezombie deer" received in 2019, after numerous reports of strange animal behavior. Lethargy, head down, loss of weight and coordination of movements, as well as lack of response to external stimuli. Given the scale and speed of the spread of the infection, experts recommend not to come into contact with sick animals and stop eating venison.

To date, there is no reasonbelieve that CWD is transmitted from deer to humans. As shown by the results of previous experiments on primates, monkeys became ill with CWD after eating the meat of infected animals.

In a word, if you have an infected deer or roe deer in front of you, you should not come into contact with them (especially if the animals have increased salivation and loss of coordination of movements).

Biologists and veterinarians shrug their shoulders - according to them, they have not seen such diseases before

This is a disease that cannot be cured.There is no cure or vaccine yet, so if there are deer in the area, the disease will quickly spread between them. What's more, the territories inhabited by sick animals are likely to expand, officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) say.

Symptoms of chronic wasting diseasedo not appear immediately. The most common initial symptoms are emaciation, unsteadiness when walking, and foaming at the mouth. Another problem is the burial of infected animals - according to the recommendations, the remains should be buried to a depth of at least one and a half meters (or deep enough that scavengers are left without supper). Scientists also point out that
burial reduces but does not eliminate the risk of CWD spread.

You may be wondering: Can mutations in the rabies virus lead to an outbreak of a "zombie" infection?

Zombie roe deer in Russia

The latest news from the Kurgan region soundseerily - more than 30 dead animals were found in local forests. The first reports of hunters about the strange behavior of roe deer began to arrive in the spring - inappropriate behavior of animals was accompanied by salivation, blood from the eyes and their suppuration, and wounds, black spots and strange growths were visible on the bodies of the unfortunate.

Roe deer infected with an unknown disease in the Kurgan region

According to media reports, the specialists facedwith such a situation for the first time and could not detect the causative agent of the disease in the laboratory. For this reason, scientists are considering several versions, including poisoning with toxic chemicals used to process crops. According to Kommersant, the biomaterials have been sent to the All-Russian Research Institute of Animal Diseases for additional research.

In connection with the detection of diseased roe deer in one ofhunting farms of the Dalmatovsky district, laboratory studies were carried out in the Kurgan regional veterinary laboratory and the Sverdlovsk laboratory. To date, no infectious agents have been identified, the agency said in a statement.

More than 40 roe deer died in the Kurgan region due to an unknown disease

The event has already been reacted toState Duma for Ecology and Environmental Protection, and the local Rosselkhoznadzor began to conduct an inspection. One of the reasons for the quick response is probably the YouTube videos of unfortunate "roe deer zombies". Authorities also intend to control the infected areas in order to slow the spread of the disease.

Don't Miss: Reindeer are catching coronavirus. Why is it important?

What are the diseases of deer and roe deer?

But here's what surprised me personally - the symptoms andthe appearance of Kurgan roe deer strongly resembles "zombie deer" from other countries. The conducted laboratory analysis did not reveal any viral and / or bacterial agents, which confused the specialists. And this is not surprising, because previously these terrible symptoms and the mass death of animals were not reported.

Of course, I have no medical education andI may be wrong in my assumptions. However, for the past three years, I have paid a lot of attention to prion diseases and in particular to “zombie deer”, so the conclusions suggest themselves - note by the author of this article;)

Unfortunately we can't help infected animals.

The main task of specialists today is notto allow the spread of the disease (whatever its causative agent may be). The extremely high pathogenicity of CWD and the lack of drugs against a terrible scourge do not exist and endanger the life and well-being of the entire deer family.

This is interesting: What do the rarest deer in the world look like and why are they dying out?

Although evidence of transmission of chronicthere is no debilitating disease from deer to humans, it is better not to contact sick animals and not to eat their potentially infected meat. According to news published in the media, a representative of the Federal Center for Animal Health is sent to the Kurgan region to deal with an unknown disease in roe deer.

Experts cannot yet assess the danger of the disease to humans.

Although there are currently severalversions of the mass death of animals, researchers should pay close attention to their possible infection with fetching. What do you think about the diseases of the Ural roe deer? We will wait for the answer here and, of course, in the comments to this article.