A northwestern Saskatchewan game farm is the latest site of a positive case of chronic wasting disease.
Sandra Stephens, a disease control specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said a 27-month-old female elk was diagnosed with the fatal brain disease this month.
After it died on the farm in September, its head was submitted for mandatory testing to Prairie Diagnostic Services and the inspection agency.
Stephens said the herd, which contains fewer than 50 head, has been quarantined along with one herd in the North Portal, Sask., region and two in the Battlefords area.
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CWD was first seen in farmed herds in Saskatchewan in 1996, with the last reported case in March 2002. Forty-four herds of elk and deer, including three herds in Alberta, have now been affected.
Thirty-four deer in the wild have tested positive for CWD in Saskatchewan since 1997.
Stephens said the herd where the latest case was found will be destroyed, along with those herds that received animals from this farm.
In addition, these farms will be disinfected and cleaned, with special attention paid to areas where the animals congregated.
She said that’s necessary because much remains unknown about CWD.
Stephens cited ongoing research in Colorado examining how long the disease-causing prion remains in the environment, what the infective dose is and whether there are certain conditions that help spread the infection.
“There’s all sorts of questions on the environmental aspect that need to be answered,” Stephens said.
