Screwworm can cost the US billions. Here’s why.

A Maryland resident who traveled to El Salvador got here residence final month with an unwelcome memento: larvae of the New World screwworm burrowing of their flesh.The affected person has since recovered from the painful parasite, and Maryland well being officers confirmed that there’s no signal of transmission to anybody else. However the case is historic: It’s the primary time in additional than half a century {that a} human within the US has been contaminated by a screwworm.By itself, it’s a medical oddity — a one-off, travel-linked case that doesn’t pose a direct threat to Individuals. But it surely’s additionally a warning signal of a a lot larger menace creeping towards US borders. One that might rattle the spine of American agriculture.For the previous 20 years, screwworms have been held at a distance by an invisible barrier alongside the Panama-Colombia border by a joint US-Panama program that usually floods the area with sterile flies. That barrier has, nonetheless, cracked. Since 2023, screwworm has resurged via Central America and into Mexico.As a result of the flies lay their eggs in any open wounds, infestations escalate quick: A single reduce can entice wave after wave of flies. And since cattle are saved in confined herds, outbreaks can ripple via dozens of animals. By the point the harm is seen, it’s often superior and the flies have unfold out. In simply the previous yr, such infestations have led to a $1.3 billion loss within the Mexican cattle export trade, in accordance with the Mexican Nationwide Agricultural Council.Screwworm outbreaks can spiral quickly, crippling whole herds. Cows are costly to boost, feed, breed, and slaughter — that’s why the American livestock trade treats screwworms as a nightmare state of affairs, worse than mad cow or foot-and-mouth illness. In Texas alone, a screwworm outbreak may drain as a lot as $1.8 billion a yr from ranchers and the broader economic system, in accordance with an estimate by the US Division of Agriculture.The US has a historical past of eliminating these flies earlier than. And it’s now dusting off previous, confirmed methods and spending actual cash. In Might, the USDA put $21 million to renovate an present facility in Metapa, Mexico, to provide sterile flies to manage the unfold. Earlier this yr, the USDA additionally introduced its $8.5 million plan to construct a plant in south Texas. However is a Twentieth-century toolkit sufficient to battle off this rising menace?Consultants say that the context has shifted within the final 50 years. Local weather change is warming habitats, rising doable locations the place screwworms can thrive. Industrial livestock farming has scaled up enormously, which means a single outbreak may communicate via herds quicker than ever. In the meantime, the Trump administration pushed out round 15,000 USDA staff and terminated a screwworm monitoring venture. We have now newer, higher instruments to battle off these, however these are but to be accredited. And parasites don’t await paperwork.What precisely is a New World screwworm?The New World screwworm is a parasitic fly discovered as we speak throughout components of South America and the Caribbean. They’ve shiny blue-gray our bodies and look just like home flies that swarm your native dumpster. However not like these abnormal flies, screwworm flies love contemporary wounds.Feminine screwworm flies are interested in warm-blooded animals, and lay their eggs in open cuts or pure openings like ears or nostrils. Every feminine can lay as much as 200 eggs at a time, which hatch some 12 to 24 hours later. Upon hatching, the larvae twist into flesh like corkscrews tearing deeper as they feed, inflicting excessive ache and tissue harm. Their scientific title, Cochliomyia hominivorax, which interprets to man-eater, and their widespread title, screwworm, seize their horror: a spiral fly that eats its host alive.After feeding for as much as every week, the larvae wriggle again out of the wound and drop to the bottom, the place they pupate within the soil earlier than rising as grownup screwworm flies — able to repeat the cycle.What makes screwworms significantly brutal is that they solely eat residing flesh. A single infested wound turns into a beacon for extra flies, resulting in layer upon layer of larvae actually consuming the host alive. Infestations in people are excruciating and disfiguring, however not often deadly with remedy. In animals, it’s a distinct story: A single untreated wound can host 1000’s of larvae that actually eat a cow from the within out, resulting in blood loss, infections, and collapse. Whole herds will be decimated.However there’s an achilles heel: Feminine screwworms mate solely as soon as of their life — a singular organic quirk that has underpinned the US’s management technique for many years.How the US beat screwwormsScrewworms as soon as terrorized the American South and the Western US, and killed thousands and thousands of {dollars}’ value of cattle every year. By the mid-Twentieth century, the fly was costing America’s ranchers as much as $100 million yearly.However beginning within the Nineteen Fifties, USDA scientists discovered a approach to make use of the fly’s biology in opposition to itself. If they might discover a technique to get the feminine flies to mate with sterile mates, they might cease the flies’ inhabitants in its tracks. And that’s how the sterile insect method (SIT) was developed.The SIT is pretty easy: Rear big numbers of screwworms in a lab and sterilize the pupae via radiation (a discovery from the post-war atomic age when scientists realized they might make flies infertile with out killing them). Then these freshly sterilized pupae are packed onto twin-engine planes, timed so the flies hatch within the air. These flies are then sprayed out over the forest and ranchlands by the thousands and thousands. They wake in heat air and do what flies do: They mate. These pairings then produce nothing. In case you try this at a adequate scale and for an extended sufficient time, the inhabitants will finally collapse.The primary eradication program within the American Southeast ran via the Nineteen Fifties adopted by a bigger push throughout Southwest, costing roughly $42 million in complete. Ranching teams pushed the USDA for eradication, Texas cattlemen even wrote letters to USDA urging the company to increase SIT. And in contrast to as we speak’s debates round genetically modified mosquitoes, screwworms by no means stirred a lot controversy. The method was focused, pesticide-free, and spared different bugs, which is why it was an unusually “inexperienced” pest management, mentioned Max Scott, a professor of entomology at NC State College. By 1966, the fly was gone.The method then was adopted in Mexico and components of Central America, pushing the flies all the way in which to a slender band of dense rainforests between Panama and Colombia referred to as the Darién Hole. The Pan-American freeway famously stops there, the area is sparsely populated, treacherous to cross, and lightweight on livestock. It’s precisely the sort of chokepoint the place a organic “firewall” can maintain.Since 1998, a US-Panama program referred to as Fee for the Eradication and Prevention of Screwworm (COPEG) has held the road on the Darién Hole. Planes drop off thousands and thousands of sterile flies every week, and inspectors patrol the frontier city (not the deep Darién itself) to identify infestations, pluck out maggots manually, and deal with wounds with pesticides — as a result of SIT solely works for those who additionally knock down lively infestations.This system prices about $15 million yearly and is funded largely by USDA, with Panama contributing a small share. “It was one of many biggest achievements of the USDA within the Twentieth century,” Scott mentioned.However, in 2023, the firewall cracked.Smuggling of cattle via Central America seeded contemporary outbreaks in new areas, and local weather shifts — greater temperatures and humidity — aided their unfold. By spring 2025, Mexico was reporting detections as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, a stretch of land far wider and tough to include than the slender Darién. COPEG has been operating flat out, turning out round 100 million larvae every week. However even at most capability, the plant can solely accomplish that a lot. The screwworm entrance continued to advance.Earlier this yr, the USDA dedicated $21 million to transform an previous fruit-fly plant in Metapa, Mexico, to churn out 60 million to 100 million sterile screwworms weekly to be launched in southern Mexico, the place the brand new entrance is. It’s additionally constructing a manufacturing facility in Edinburg, Texas, with 3 times that capability. Congress is making an attempt to lock this in with the STOP Screwworms Act, a bipartisan invoice that might formally authorize USDA to construct and fund the brand new Texas facility.This can be a lot of mobilization for a freaky bug, nevertheless it underscores how otherwise the US treats livestock threats.Chook flu has killed greater than 160 million birds within the US since 2022, in accordance with the Coalition to Cease Flu, and USDA just lately rolled out a $1 billion bundle to shore up defenses. The technique there may be nonetheless mass culling of chickens and aid checks to producers — way more reactive than proactive. Screwworm, against this, has lengthy been handled like a nationwide safety menace, defended by a prevention firewall that prices tens of thousands and thousands {dollars} a yr to take care of.A part of it’s merely worth: Cattle is a $112 billion trade, and a screwworm outbreak may value billions a yr in losses. Half is political: Ranchers pressed for eradication within the Nineteen Fifties and have constantly backed the sterile-fly program since. The poultry trade is simply as highly effective, nevertheless it’s break up on chicken flu technique – with many producers fearing that widespread vaccination may jeopardize US export markets. That warning exhibits up within the USDA’s new $1 billion chicken flu bundle: half a billion for biosecurity, $400 million in monetary aid, and simply $100 million — 10 % — for vaccines.Proper now, there are not any FDA-approved medication to deal with screwworms in individuals or animals, although the company says it has “a number of regulatory pathways” to fast-track opinions and authorize medication. There are promising genetic instruments that enhance on SIT, however they are going to want regulatory approval and public belief earlier than they fly.And even with contemporary funding, the USDA might not be capable to aptly execute its formidable plans, on condition that 15,000 of the company’s workers have been let go earlier this yr. In the long run, it’s not simply biosecurity at stake, it’s additionally a serious supply of our meals provide and a slice of our economic system.You’ve learn 1 article within the final monthHere at Vox, we’re unwavering in our dedication to protecting the problems that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the atmosphere, and the rising polarization throughout this nation.Our mission is to supply clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to remain knowledgeable and engaged in shaping our world. By changing into a Vox Member, you instantly strengthen our potential to ship in-depth, unbiased reporting that drives significant change.We depend on readers such as you — be a part of us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-Chief