ABSTRACT
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). TSEs, commonly known as prion diseases, are characterized as fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disorders which can affect man, domestic animals and wildlife. Of several TSEs in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and a new variant of CJD (vCJD), the latter being transmitted to man from cattle with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are the most well known. Examples of TSEs in animals are scrapie (sheep and goats; classical and atypical forms), Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy (FSE, cats), and CWD, affecting free-ranging and captive cervids. CWD is the only known TSE that affects free-ranging, non-domestic animals (Haley and Hoover, 2015). These diseases are all caused by prions.
