Screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that eats its hosts alive, has moved northward through Central America and southern Mexico, putting the U.S. cattle industry on high alert.
The human case in a person who had traveled from El Salvador to Maryland was confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 4, but the agency did not publicly disclose it until Reuters exclusively reported on the case on August 24. The affected person fully recovered and there was no sign of spread to other people or animals, Maryland state health officials told Reuters.
“I don’t know the exact date that she learned about it, but we found out about it I think it was over the weekend,“ he said, referring to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Following Vaden’s comments, the USDA released a statement late on Tuesday, saying the CDC has been leading the response to the human case. In support of that response, the USDA initiated targeted screwworm surveillance in a 20-mile (32 km) radius including parts of Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, which had so far not detected the pest.
The release also said the risk to U.S. public health from the human case is very low and that there have been previous travel-associated human cases of screwworm. The USDA has not detected screwworm in livestock or other animals since 2017, the release said.
The USDA is investing $750 million to build a Texas facility that would produce and distribute sterile flies to mate with the wild screwworm population and drive down their numbers.
Animal health experts have told Reuters that a number exponentially greater than the current supply of sterile flies would be needed to stop the spread of screwworm.
There is still no timeline to reopen the border, and the USDA is sending a team to Mexico in two weeks to verify that Mexico is following protocol to prevent screwworm’s northern spread, Vaden said. - Reuters
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