Fresh on the heels of bird flu, the New World screwworm is rattling Agriculture Department officials and livestock producers more than any threat in 50 years. This is because few believe we’re equipped to handle an outbreak of screwworm. Once eradicated from the U.S., screwworm has returned, similarly as has measles.
A natural barrier and sound management practices once kept the parasitic fly carriers away. Now, they’ve been detected as close as 370 miles from the Texas/Mexico border. State and federal sterile fly initiatives are in the works, but producers and industry experts question the size and timing of these programs and how they will affect efficacy. Realistically, most industry experts believe screwworm is already here.
Source: The New York Times, July 28, Link. “It’s like something out of a horror movie,” the Texas agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, said . . .. He saw distressed cattle infested with screwworm when he was a child in the early 1960s before it was nearly eradicated. “It’s quite a putrid sight,” he said.
The parasitic infection can kill a cow within two weeks if left untreated.”
Photo: Jose Luis Gonzalez, Reuters