Overview

• The USDA has approved an $8.5 million plant at Moore Air Base, Texas, less than 20 miles from the Mexican border, to breed millions of sterile screwworm flies weekly by the end of 2025.
• Sterile male flies released from the facility will mate with wild females and prevent them from laying eggs in wounds, halting flesh-eating larval infestations in cattle and other mammals.
• The program revives the same sterile-fly tactic that eradicated New World screwworm from the US in the 1960s after detections reached within 700 miles of the border.
• US authorities will convert a fruit fly breeding site near Guatemala into a second sterile screwworm facility with a $21 million USDA investment in cooperation with Mexican officials.
• Live imports of cattle, horses and bison from Mexico remain suspended, and industry leaders warn of severe economic losses if the parasite spreads into US herds.