Chronic wasting disease

As the British "Telegraph" writes, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or "chronic wasting disease" (CWD) affects the brain of the infected animal and causes symptoms such as lethargy, nervousness, increased drooling and grinding of teeth with a "blank look" like a zombie.

Known as chronic wasting disease, the fatal progressive neurodegenerative illness was first identified in the 1960s. Like mad cow, the disease is spread by prions, the zombie-like pathogenic proteins that aren't alive and can't be killed. When they infect an animal, they eat away at its brain, causing a cascade of symptoms that resemble dementia and eventually lead to death.