Ag News

USDA updates plans to combat screwworm

On Aug. 15, the USDA announced expanded efforts to combat the New World Screwworm (NWS), including building a sterile fly production facility in Edinburg, Texas. This adds to the department’s five-pronged plan issued in June.

When NWS fly larvae (maggots) burrow into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious, often deadly damage to the animal. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people. It is not only a threat to the ranching community, it is a threat to the U.S. food supply and its national security.

The American Farm Bureau Federation lauded the plan to continue battling the NWS.

“It took decades to eradicate this parasite from within and adjacent to our borders more than a generation ago, and this is a proactive first step,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “Cattle markets are already volatile and the introduction of New World screwworm within the U.S. would only increase that volatility.”

The USDA said it is working alongside the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to encourage animal drug development and prioritize approvals for prevention and treatment of the pest, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on new innovations to enhance the nation’s ability to combat the pest with technologies, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to protect the United States border. 

As part of this comprehensive approach, USDA is taking the following immediate actions:

1.) Innovation - While sterile flies are currently the most effective way to prevent the spread of NWS, technology continues to evolve and the USDA will invest up to $100 million in innovations to accelerate the pace of sterile fly production. USDA will support proven concepts that only require funding to scale and implement, as well as a number of longer-term research projects focused on new sterile NWS production techniques, novel NWS traps and lures, NWS therapeutics 

that could be stockpiled and used should NWS reach the United States, and any other tools to bolster preparedness or response to NWS.

2.) Border protection – USDA will construct a sterile fly production facility in Edinburg, Texas, at Moore Air Force Base, an ideal location due to the existing infrastructure and proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border. Built with the Army Corps of Engineers, the facility will produce up to 300 million sterile flies per week to combat NWS. This will be the only United States-based sterile fly facility and will work in tandem with facilities in Panama and Mexico to help eradicate the pest and protect American agriculture.

3.) Wildlife Migration Prevention – The U.S is potentially vulnerable to NWS from wildlife migrating across the border. USDA is working to ramp up the hiring of USDA-employed horse-mounted patrol officers, known as “Tick Riders,” and other staff who will focus on border surveillance. The Tick Riders will be complemented by other animal health experts who will patrol the border in vehicles. USDA will also begin training detector dogs to detect screwworm infestations in livestock and other animals along the border and at various ports of entry. 

4.) Stop the pest from spreading in Mexico - USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is working in collaboration with the National Service of Agri-Food Health, Safety and Quality (SENASICA) in Mexico to help them contain the pest south of the border by enhancing United States oversight, surveillance, improving case reporting, locking down animal movement to prevent further spread, providing traps, lures, training, and verification of Mexican NWS activities. 

5.) Food safety inspections - NWS has not been reported or detected in the United States in animals. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service inspects animals and carcasses at slaughter, including for NWS to keep the food supply safe.

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