Overview

• Health and Human Services issued a declaration enabling the FDA to grant emergency use authorizations for animal drugs to treat or prevent New World screwworm.
• Officials note there are no FDA‑approved therapies for the parasite, so EUAs can permit use of products approved for other purposes or in other countries.
• FDA leaders said the goal is to safeguard animal health and the nation’s food supply, while HHS emphasized that current human health risk in the U.S. remains very low.
• USDA earlier suspended cattle, horse, and bison imports from Mexico after detections in southern states there, with reports last month placing cases roughly 370 miles from the U.S. border.
• Federal and state partners are scaling sterile‑male fly production and releases, including a $750 million facility planned in Edinburg, Texas, to produce about 300 million sterile flies per week.