Chronic Wasting Disease is found in almost half the states in the U.S., including Pennsylvania. There is no treatment for the ailment that affects deer and elk.

NORTHAMPTON — Experts say Pennsylvania’s white-tailed deer and hunting culture aren’t facing a Chronic Wasting Disease catastrophe. Yet.

But state game and agriculture officials are calling for a unified effort on the part of hunters and other outdoors enthusiasts, along with deer farmers, to avoid becoming another Wisconsin.

Some parts of that state are seeing half their deer population infected, said Wayne Laroche, special assistant to the Pennsylvania Game Commission for Chronic Wasting Disease.

Chronic Wasting Disease affects members of the cervid family: black-tailed deer, elk, moose, mule deer, red deer, reindeer, sika deer and white-tailed deer, and hybrids of these species. It was first confirmed in the United States in 1967, in northern Colorado. Now it’s in almost half the states in the nation.

Regionally, the disease turned up in eastern West Virginia in 2005, northern Virginia in 2009 and western Maryland in 2010 — all near the Pennsylvania border. It’s been confirmed in 177 free-ranging deer in Pennsylvania since 2012.

Similar to mad cow disease in cattle and scrapie in sheep, CWD is part of the family of diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. It’s caused by an abnormal protein, called a prion, rather than a living organism like a virus that an animal’s immune system could fight.

There is no treatment, no cure and no vaccine. “Any animal getting the infection always dies, Laroche said.

CWD is not known to affect humans. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been surveilling for increased incidences of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, linked to mad cow, to look for spikes possibly associated with CWD, according to Laroche. There’s been no evidence of human infections.

It spreads between cervids through feces, urine and saliva. The prion can remain infectious outside an animal for up to 15 years, Laroche said.

The CDC recommends against eating meat from deer and elk that test positive for CWD. Officials advise wearing protective gloves when field-dressing a deer, and say hunters should ask their butcher to process only their kill instead of mixing it with the meat of other deer. The state asks hunters or others who see a deer they suspect might have CWD to call their regional Pennsylvania Game Commission office.