The flesh-eating parasite known as the screwworm has arrived in the United States. And for the first time in modern history, it has officially infected a human in the United States.
Back in June, I wrote about the march of the screwworm across Honduras. In July, I followed up with an update on how Texas was partnering with Mexico to release billions of sterile male flies to mate with female screwworms, aiming to reduce their numbers.
While that may have made a dent, given the scale of the swarm, it was only a matter of time before someone in the United States was infected. The patient is a Maryland resident who had recently traveled to El Salvador.
Thankfully, they had already recovered after doctors confirmed they were infested with the larvae of Cochliomyia hominivorax, also known as the screwworm fly.
First U.S. Case of Flesh-Eating Screwworm Parasite Confirmed
While some parasites of its kind lay eggs on dead flesh and move on, the screwworm fly eats living tissue. The larva burrows into warm-blooded animals, such as cows and humans, grinding into and through the skin, slowly withering its host away until there’s nothing left.
This incident, confirmed on August 4 by the CDC and Maryland Health Department, is the first human case in the U.S. linked to a Central American outbreak. Luckily, it was contained. There’s no evidence of local transmission, and health officials are downplaying the risk.
Still, the U.S. agricultural industry is a nervous wreck over it, especially in Texas, where officials say a major outbreak could cost upwards of $1.8 billion in damage.
While a screwworm won’t hesitate to eat human flesh, they devastate livestock more than anything—cattle, pigs, pets, and even wildlife. The U.S. actually eradicated these parasites in the 1960s using the same method of releasing billions of sterilized male flies from airplanes to mate with females and end the line that I mentioned earlier.
They shut the program down, thinking they had solved the problem. Life doesn’t work that way, though. However, since it worked once before, the USDA is rolling out the same plan again, hoping it’ll work a second time.
There’s just one big downside: the program won’t be fully operational for 2–3 years. And in the meantime, the screwworm’s been inching closer to the border. Mexico confirmed a case just 370 miles from the Texas border in July, prompting emergency shutdowns of the cross-border cattle trade.
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