What does CWD look like?
Signs of the disease include gradual weight loss and changes in behaviour. In early stages of the disease, the animal may look normal, but in later stages affected animals may show weight loss, drooling and difficulty swallowing, increased drinking and urination, poor coordination or stumbling, trembling or depression. Signs may be present for days, weeks or months before death. Difficulty swallowing can lead to pneumonia and rapid death if feed is breathed into the lungs or aspirated. After infection with the CWD agent occurs, symptoms may not appear for years. In captivity, infected animals are usually 2 to 7 years old before symptoms are noticed, but there have been younger cases. Infection appears to be fatal in all cases. However, because the clinical signs are quite nonspecific, CWD is not diagnosed by the symptoms or by testing a live animal. Laboratory and microscopic examination of a small area of the base of the brain as well as the tonsils and lymph nodes associated with the
