In March 2018, Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA stated that the first case of CWD in Finland had been diagnosed in a 15-year-old moose ("Alces alces") that had died naturally in the municipality of Kuhmo in the Kainuu region. Before this case in Kuhmo, Norway was the only country in the European Economic Area where CWD has been diagnosed. The moose did not have the transmissible North American form of the disease, but similar to the Norwegian variant of CWD, an atypical or sporadic form which occurs incidentally in individual animals of the deer family. In Finland, CWD screening of fallen wild deer has been done since 2003. None of the roughly 2,500 samples analyzed so far have tested positive for the disease. The export of live animals of the deer family to other countries has been temporarily banned as a precautionary measure to stop the spread of the CWD, and moose hunters are going to be provided with more instructions before the start of the next hunting season, if appropriate. The export and sales of meat from deer will not be restricted and moose meat is considered safe to eat as only the brain and nervous tissue of infected moose contains prions.