JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi and Louisiana wildlife officials have stopped killing deer to test for chronic wasting disease after no additional cases were found.

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks learned Feb. 9 that the disease had been confirmed in the Delta’s Issaquena County. It was the first time the illness was found in Mississippi.

Officials say genetics showed the infected white-tailed deer was local, and therefore was infected locally.
Chronic wasting disease affects brains of deer and related animals, such as elk. There’s no known treatment.

Russ Walsh, the department’s wildlife bureau director, says about 780 deer were killed in western Mississippi and eastern Louisiana within a 25-mile radius of where the diseased deer was found. None of those deer tested positive for the disease.