The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed on the 5th local time that a second case of screwworm parasite infection was confirmed in Texas. The case was found in a ranch in Zavala County, Texas, only about 9 kilometers away from the infection site where the first case in the United States in decades was confirmed on Wednesday (3rd).
Michael Schmoyer, deputy director of the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), previously stated at a press conference that only one case was confirmed, but the Department of Agriculture subsequently updated its statement to confirm that the second case of infection was a calf that was just one month old.
The town of La Pryor in Zavala County, where the epidemic occurred, is about 48 kilometers northeast of the US-Mexico border. Over the past year, U.S. cattle producers have been preparing for potential outbreaks as the parasite spreads northward from Mexico. The emergence of consecutive confirmed cases indicates that this devastating pest may have formed a chain of transmission in the United States, posing a serious setback to the defense line of the national livestock industry.
Screwworms are extremely destructive parasitic flies that lay their eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes of warm-blooded animals. After the eggs hatch, the larvae will burrow into and eat away at the living tissue of the host. If not treated in time, it will directly lead to the death of the infected animal. Its carnivorous characteristics pose a fatal threat to the safety of animal husbandry.
