「喪屍鹿」病毒又爆發,或將傳染人類?

但是，加拿大和德國的科學家通過實驗和研究發現，CWD通過臨床手段，可以傳染給小鼠和獼猴。

The CWD prion has been shown to experimentally infect squirrel monkeys, and also laboratory mice that carry some human genes. An additional study begun in 2009 by Canadian and German scientists, which has not yet been published in the scientific literature, is evaluating whether CWD can be transmitted to macaques—a type of monkey that is genetically closer to people than any other animal that has been infected with CWD previously.  On July 10, 2017, the scientists presented a summary of the study’s progress, in which they showed that CWD was transmitted to monkeys that were fed infected meat (muscle tissue) or brain tissue from CWD-infected deer and elk. Some of the meat came from asymptomatic deer that had CWD (i.e., deer that appeared healthy and had not begun to show signs of the illness yet). Meat from these asymptomatic deer was also able to infect the monkeys with CWD. CWD was also able to spread to macaques that had the infectious material placed directly into their brains.

已經證明CWD朊病毒可以通過實驗感染松鼠猴，和攜帶著一些人類基因的實驗室小鼠。加拿大和德國科學家於2009年開始的一項尚未在科學文獻中發表的另一項研究正在評估CWD是否可以傳播給獼猴—一種比起之前受感染的動物，在遺傳上更接近人類的猴子。2017年7月10日，科學家們對這項研究的進展進行了總結，他們發現CWD被傳染給猴子，這些猴子被餵了受感染的肉（肌肉組織）或感染了的鹿和麋鹿的腦組織。有些餵給獼猴的肉來自患CWD卻沒有症狀的鹿（即看似健康並且尚未開始顯示疾病跡象的鹿）。吃了無症狀鹿的肉也能讓猴子感染CWD。直接將感染物質放於獼猴的大腦中也能讓獼猴患CWD。