Chronic Wasting Disease in Wild and Farmed Cervids: Global Epidemiology, Economic Consequences and Future Challenges—A Conceptual Narrative Review

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has evolved from a geographically restricted transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of cervids into an international wildlife health challenge with documented population-level impact and potential broader consequences for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, captive cervid production, and wildlife management. Despite advances in prion biology, transmission, diagnostics, and surveillance, knowledge remains fragmented across epidemiological, ecological, economic, and management disciplines, limiting integrated understanding of disease persistence, spread, and long-term consequences. This conceptual review synthesizes current evidence on CWD epidemiology in wild and farmed cervids and develops a systems-based framework integrating these perspectives. We examine its distribution, biological, environmental, and anthropogenic transmission drivers, and human-mediated spread. We further evaluate population- and ecosystem-level consequences, economic impacts on wildlife-based economies and captive cervid production, surveillance and management strategies, and priorities for future preparedness. Our synthesis identifies distinct regional epidemiological systems and shows that CWD dynamics are shaped by reciprocal interactions among host ecology, environmental contamination, human activities, economic responses, and management interventions. Ecological changes may modify transmission opportunities, while economic and societal responses influence surveillance capacity, stakeholder behaviour, management feasibility, and preparedness. This integration clarifies CWD dynamics, identification of knowledge gaps, and development of adaptive, evidence-based surveillance, management, and preparedness strategies.