A hunter in Alcona County is the first living human known to have contracted bovine tuberculosis from a whitetail deer, the state Department of Community Health said Thursday. The hunter was infected when he cut his hand while gutting an infected deer in October, a decade after state biologists discovered that deer in the northeastern Lower Peninsula had contracted the disease. It was the first known outbreak of bovine TB in wild whitetails in North America. The hunter, who was not identified by the Department of Community Health, will be treated with special antibiotics for nine to 12 months, the standard regimen for people who have any form of tuberculosis, said health department spokesman T.J. Bucholz.
