Just in time for fall deer hunting season, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has issued a report that deer infected with tuberculosis can transmit that disease to humans. Knowing how to avoid infection is important any time you may be around infected animals.
Deer can transmit a number of different diseases to unwary predators.
First, What exactly is Tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis is an infection caused by bacteria. It is Not Cool. Illness starts with flulike symptoms. Aches, fever, sore throat, cough; you know the drill. But the cough just doesn’t go away. The person (or animal) gradually gets worse and keeps losing weight. Eventually, without treatment, it’s generally fatal.
Most human disease comes from Mycobacterium tuberculosis passed from person to person. That can be a real problem … but that’s not news. Sometimes people get sick by catching Mycobacterium bovis from cattle. That’s also not news; about 10% of human cases come that way.
The news is that it’s been confirmed that people in the Midwest are getting tuberculosis from deer. Now, you can get tuberculosis from breathing in droplets coughed out by a sick individual. You can also get it from eating raw milk or meat. Few people hang out with coughing deer or drink their milk; and most people cook the meat. It’s thought the hunters are getting it while they’re processing their kills.
The CDC spills the beans in a report
When somebody comes down with tuberculosis, the public health people like to track down where it came from. That’s because there are often a lot of other people catching it from the same source who need treatment. But this Michigan hunter had no known contact with human TB; and it’s not a thing you’d catch by sharing an elevator.
His TB turned out to be the sort transmitted by cattle. It’s also shared among deer, elk, bison, and badgers. (Badgers? Well, biology’s that way sometimes.) The victim was a long time hunter. The CDC concludes he got infected while field-dressing one of his deer. He’s not the only one either. Since his infection (2017) other deer hunter cases have turned up.
It’s notable that no one had noticed TB in Michigan deer, although whitetails in general are known to transmit. Nobody had actually looked. Are the four-leggers in your hunting area infected? That’s probably not known yet either; but not you’ve got reason not to trust their clean.
What can you do to avoid bovine tuberculosis?
What doesn’t work: Looking at a deer and figuring, “Hey, looks healthy enough.” No one had noticed their deer had a problem.
Easy solution first: Make sure to cook meat thoroughly. There are So many good reasons to do this anyway. (Taking a parasitology course cured me of any temptation to eat uncooked meat, forever. I’ll spare you the nasty details.)
What you might not be doing: Wear protective gear when field dressing. The CDC report doesn’t specify, but to me that means a good particulate filter mask, something to keep tiny droplets out of your eyes, and gloves to stop blood contact with any breaks in your skin. I’d add mesh gloves atop those — in what world is not slicing a hand open bad?
The transmission probably comes when tuberculosis-infected body parts are being removed. Lungs and lymph nodes are the biggest reservoirs, but there can also be cysts in meat and free bacteria in blood and other body fluids. Tiny little droplets get freed into the air when you’re cutting things up. If these are inhaled or get into eyes or through skin breaks, Bingo. Infection.
What do you do if you catch tuberculosis?
Antibiotics are the only working solution I’ve ever heard of. TB used to kill a looooottt of people too, so many alternative remedies have been tried. The course of drugs needed is often quite long too. The only good news is that I haven’t heard that bovine TB is resistant to antibiotics. Many human strains are Mega-resistant. Best to avoid the problem in the first place. Besides, who relishes the thought of inhaling tiny droplets of deer fluids?
Bonus tip: Clean tools used for processing carcasses with antiseptics. That will reduce transmission risk further.
Tuberculosis, and some other germs, form cysts where they hide from the host’s immune system. Structures like these are Never a good sign.