The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning deer hunters to be careful in how they handle the animals, especially if they travel to certain parts of the country to hunt.
The CDC says people can develop tuberculosis from infected deer. Currently, tuberculosis cases in deer have been limited to Michigan and Montana, and an elderly man in Michigan apparently contracted TB by inhaling “infectious pathogens” from a deer. Two other hunters were infected in the same part of Michigan 15 years earlier.
In people, TB symptoms include severe cough, fever, weight loss and chest pain. People are normally infected by eating or drinking unpasteurized dairy items, but it can also be transmitted by direct contact of an open wound or inhaling pathogens.
Deer can contract bovine tuberculosis, which actually makes for less than two percent of all TB cases. Coincidentally, deer have transmitted TB to cattle in Michigan, with documented cases dating to 1998.
