The “100% fatal" deer disease causing chaos around the world is “evolving” and could spread to humans, an expert has chillingly warned.

Earlier this week, an “emergency” was declared following a huge rise in chronic wasting disease spotted in the United States. Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reported a total of 19 deer were now suffering with CWD – as well as several deaths.

The neurological illness has infected beasts staring into the distance and leaves them “extremely skinny” and “aggressive”. And after a recent study claimed that it could be evolving to make it more infectious to humans, officials are panicking over how well prepared – or not – humans are to fight it.

Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Minnesota, said: “We are working on a major initiative, bringing together 68 different global experts on various aspects of CWD to really look at what are the challenges ahead should we see a spillover into humans and food production.

“The bottom-line message is we are quite unprepared. If we saw a spillover right now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans for what to do or how to follow up.”

Suffering beasts are known to stumble around while drooling and will lose their wariness of humans while often becoming aggressive. Infected animals - which can include deer, elk, moose, caribou and reindeer - are incredibly contagious, with the mad staring earning them the tag ‘zombie deer’.

There are no known treatments or vaccines and it is incredibly hard to decontaminate an area even after burning the ground, which is prescribed. Infected deers don't show symptoms until at least one year, but once the virus takes hold the animal will be dead in months.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CWD has been found in at least 31 US states, plus Norway, Finland, Sweden, South Korea and Canada.