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MONTICELLO, Ark. (AP) — Wildlife biologists are scrambling to learn the extent of the chronic wasting disease discovered in an elk and a deer in the same Arkansas county earlier this year.
The state Game and Fish Commission is sampling around the Newton County area where the animals were found to determine the prevalence of the disease.
And wildlife ecologists at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture say they are attempting to understand the factors that enhance the spread of the disease to develop ways to perhaps slow or control it.
The disease affects animals such as elk, deer and moose. It's unclear how it reached northern Arkansas.
There are no confirmed cases of the disease being transmitted to humans or livestock, but health officials say meat from infected animals shouldn't be eaten.
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