Oh Good, Screwworms Are Back
10 hours ago
- #Public Health
- #Screwworm Resurgence
- #Institutional Failure
- The Newworld Screwworm is a parasitic fly that lays eggs in open wounds of living animals, including humans, with maggots consuming the host alive, causing significant economic damage and suffering.
- The screwworm was largely eradicated in North America through the sterile insect technique (SIT), where sterile males are released to mate with females, preventing reproduction, with successful campaigns from the 1950s to the 1990s pushing it back to Panama.
- A containment barrier in Panama, maintained by COPEG and costing $15 million annually, kept the screwworm from spreading north, but it was breached in 2022, leading to outbreaks in Central America and Mexico, likely due to COVID-19 disruptions and unchecked livestock migration.
- Current efforts to address the resurgence include ramping up surveillance, restricting livestock movement, using ivermectin in feed, and increasing sterile fly production, but re-establishing control may take 5-10 years due to institutional failures and delays.