A $8.5 million sterile New World screwworm fly dispersal facility in South Texas, along with a comprehensive protection plan, will be used to combat the risk of NWS spreading into the United States, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced June 18. The facility at Moore Air Base is scheduled for completion in 2025.
NWS is a pest that causes serious and often deadly damage to livestock, wildlife, pets, and in rare cases, humans. While NWS has been absent from the United States for decades, recent detections in Mexico as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, about 700 miles away from the U.S. border, led to the suspension of live cattle, horse, and bison imports through U.S. ports of entry along the southern border with Mexico beginning on May 11.
NWS was a subject of remarks made by California Horse Racing Board equine medical director Dr. Jeff Blea during the monthly meeting of the CHRB June 19.
"If screwworm were to spread in the United States, it would result in significant economic losses and threats to animal health and welfare," Blea said. "Horses, of which we're all concerned about, can be carriers and spread the disease if they have open wounds or mucous membrane injuries that have become infested."
According to Blea, female flies only mate once, and mating with a sterile male stops the perpetuation cycle of NWS.
NWS was eradicated from the U.S. in 1966.
"The United States has defeated NWS before, and we will do it again," Rollins said Wednesday. "We do not take lightly the threat NWS poses to our livestock industry, our economy, and our food supply chain."
Mounted patrol inspectors who work on the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program along the Rio Grande River will be utilized to spot and combat the pest in the event NWS advances northward into the U.S., the United States Department of Agriculture noted in a release.
Besides the fly facility in Texas, the USDA's recent $21 million expenditure went toward renovating an existing fruit fly production facility in Metapa, Mexico, which will provide an additional 60-100 million sterile flies a week to stop the spread, on top of the over 100 million already produced in Panama. This will result in at least 160 million flies per week, according to the USDA.
The Texas facility will also have the capability to disperse sterile flies in Northern Mexico.
