A case of the flesh-eating screwworm parasite has been detected in a person in the United States for the first time.
The parasitic flies eat cattle and other warm-blooded animals alive, with an outbreak beginning in Central America and southern Mexico late last year. It is ultimately fatal if left untreated.
The case in the US was identified in a person from Maryland who had travelled to El Salvador. South Dakota’s state veterinarian Beth Thompson told Reuters that she was notified of the case within the last week.
A Maryland state government official also confirmed the case.
The person was treated and prevention measures were implemented, Reuters reports.
The female screwworm fly lays eggs in the wounds of warm-blooded animals and once hatched, hundreds of screwworm larvae use their sharp mouths to burrow through living flesh.
It can be devastating in cattle and wildlife, and has also been known to infect humans.
Treatment is onerous, and involves removing hundreds of larvae and thoroughly disinfecting wounds. They are largely survivable if treated early enough.
The confirmed case is likely to rattle the beef and cattle futures market, which has seen record-high prices because of tight supplies.
The US typically imports more than a million cattle from Mexico each year to process into beef.
The screwworm outbreak could cost Texas – the biggest cattle-producing state – $1.8bn in livestock deaths, labour costs and medication expenses.
The US Department of Agriculture has set traps and sent mounted officers along the border, but it has faced criticism from some cattle producers and market analysts for not acting faster to pursue increased fly production via a sterile fly facility.
The case also comes just one week after the US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins travelled to Texas to announce plans to build a sterile fly facility there in a bid to combat the pest. Rollins had pledged repeatedly to keep screwworm out of the country.
The emails from the Beef Alliance executive said that due to patient privacy laws, there were no other details available about the positive human case of screwworm.
The person was treated and prevention measures were implemented in the state, the email said.
A livestock economist at Texas A&M University was asked to prepare a report for Rollins on the impacts to industry of the border closure to Mexican cattle, according to the emails, a measure that has largely been in effect since November.
Screwworms were eradicated from the United States in the 1960s when researchers began releasing massive numbers of sterilized male screwworm flies that mate with wild female screwworms to produce infertile eggs.
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