Overview

• Since late May, USDA aircraft have released more than 100 million lab-bred, radiation-sterilized male screwworm flies each week over vulnerable border regions.
• In a June 30 update, officials confirmed no new livestock infections or northward migration among wild screwworm populations after eight weeks of releases.
• Beginning July 7, select southern border ports will reopen to cattle, horse, and bison imports under strict monitoring and binational surveillance protocols.
• A new $8.5 million Moore Air Base facility in Texas and a $21 million expansion of the Metapa plant in Mexico aim to boost weekly sterile fly output to nearly 400 million by year’s end.
• The program revives the sterile insect technique pioneered between 1962 and 1974 to collapse wild screwworm populations and safeguard U.S. agriculture and public health.