An Arkansas laboratory is taking over testing for chronic wasting disease, a fatal brain disorder afflicting deer and elk in the state.
The Arkansas Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory is the only Arkansas lab that is a member of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network. The network coordinates the nation’s response to outbreaks of animal-borne diseases.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that since presence of the disease in Arkansas was confirmed last February, the state Game and Fish Commission has had to send tissue samples to a Wisconsin lab.
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission confirmed 28 new cases of Chronic Wasting Disease in Northern Arkansas from voluntary sampling stations during opening weekend of modern gun season November 12th of last year. The samples were collected from 25 sampling sites in the CWD Management Zone in North Arkansas.
Locally there were a total of 17 cases found-two in Marion County, 14 in Newton County and one in Searcy County, where the states only positive elk sample was recently discovered. The Marion County cases were right across the border from Boone County. According to Arkansas Game and Fish deer program coordinator Cory Gray, the southernmost case was found in Yell County, on the south side of the Arkansas River.
There’s no prevention and no cure for the disease, and researchers have found no evidence that the disease poses a serious risk to humans. The disease also is in 23 other states.
The state has a deer herd of about 1 million.
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