A review of chronic wasting disease (CWD) spread, surveillance, and control in the United States captive cervid industry

ABSTRACT

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal prion disease of the family Cervidae that circulates in both wild and captive cervid populations. This disease threatens the health and economic viability of the captive cervid industry, which raises cervids in contained spaces for purposes such as hunting and breeding. Given the high transmissibility and long incubation period of CWD, the introduction and propagation of the infectious prion protein within and between captive cervid farms could be devastating to individual facilities and to the industry as a whole. Despite this risk, there does not yet exist a literature review that summarizes the scientific knowledge, to date, about CWD spread, surveillance, or control measures. Our review, which focused on peer reviewed, primary research conducted in the United States, sought to address this need by searching Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science with a five-term keyword string containing terms related to the (1) location, (2) species affected, (3) disease, (4) captive cervid industry, and (5) topic of focus. Between the three databases, there were 189 articles that were selected for further examination. Those articles were then read to determine if they were about CWD spread, surveillance, and/or control in captive cervid facilities. The 21 articles that met these inclusion criteria were evaluated in detail and discussed, with recommendations for future collaborative work between captive cervid owners, government agencies, and researchers. This work will help to address, inform, and mitigate the rising problem of CWD spread and establishment.

KEYWORDS:

• Contact tracing
• epidemiology
• network
• prion
• risk assessment
• transmission

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Correction

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our thanks to the US Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Project (W-146-R), the Illinois Natural History Survey-Prairie Research Institute, and the University of Illinois Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research for financial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2024.2359752)

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [W-146-R].