Kerrville, Texas — Two other cases of New World Screwworm The USDA announced Monday that a pest has been confirmed in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping the spread of a pest that could devastate the nation’s livestock industry.
The screwworm is actually a fly, which produces a larvae that eats live flesh rather than dead matter. Females lay their eggs in the open wounds of any warm-blooded animal such as livestock, but wild animals, pets and sometimes humans can also be infected.
The US Department of Agriculture said New cases have been found In Hound and Dog, hundreds of miles away in LaSalle and Andrews counties. This brings the total number of confirmed cases to four. Screwworm was first detected in a 3-week-old calf last week, and a second case was found just miles away in a young calf.
“While we address these cases that require immediate attention and continue to sample suspected cases, we are simultaneously working to completely eradicate the pest,” Dudley Hoskins, USDA Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulation, said in a statement.
Before its eradication in the United States in the 1960s, the fly was an annual pest of warm-weather ranchers.
It was the US Department of Agriculture and the US livestock industry Race to prevent Invasion since the pest was discovered in Mexico in late 2024 after decades of being contained at the southern tip of Panama.
The government combats the fly by breeding sterile male flies, which then mate with wild females, which mate only once in their months-long lives. By mating with sterile flies, the females produce no more flies and the outbreak can eventually be stopped.
The USDA has announced plans to increase production of sterile flies in factories outside the United States while building a fly factory in Texas.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brock Rollins will be briefed on the infestation Monday afternoon at the U.S. Animal Entomological Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.
___
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Kerrville.