Assessing and controlling the risks associated with the emergence of Chronic Wasting Disease in Europe – EU-CWD

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a prion disease that affects wild and farmed cervids. CWD is a highly contagious: over the last 15 years the disease has spread across the whole United States of America and Canada. The CWD epidemics reached a stage where it now threatens the long term survival of cervid populations. Beside the ecological disaster it represents, major concerns exist with regard to the risk that CWD prions might represent for human (zoonosis) and other animal species (propagation in farmed ruminants) During three decades Europe was considered to be free of CWD. However, CWD cases have now been identified in three European countries. The goals of this project are: • to provide the necessary elements for an in depth assessment of the public health risks that are associated with the emergence of CWD prions in Europe. • to identify allele that would be associated with genetic resistance/ susceptibility to the disease in the cervid populations.