Overview
- Mexican authorities confirmed a New World screwworm case in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, less than 70 miles from the Texas border along the Monterrey–Laredo corridor.
- The USDA says nearly 8,000 traps across Texas, Arizona and New Mexico have detected no screwworm flies in the United States to date.
- A new sterile-fly production facility is under construction in Edinburg, Texas, as part of a federal plan that includes a Moore Air Force Base dispersal site and roughly $100 million for expanded control capacity.
- Researchers are advancing electron-beam sterilization as a non-radioactive method for preparing sterile flies, with testing targeted by next October, alongside work on genetically engineered male-only strains.
- Experts cite a capacity shortfall at the Panama barrier—now producing about 110 million sterile flies weekly versus several hundred million during past eradication campaigns—as the pest has advanced from Panama to northern Mexico since about 2023.