Texas Governor Issues Disaster Declaration Over Spread Of Parasitic Screwworm

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday said he imposed a statewide disaster declaration to prevent the spread of a type of parasitic fly in his state.

The New World screwworm isn’t yet present in the United States or Texas, although officials say it has been spreading toward the U.S.–Mexico border. Abbot said it can cause potential problems for the U.S. livestock industry if it spreads northward across the border.

“State law authorizes me to act to prevent a threat of infestation that could cause severe damage to Texas property, and I will not wait for such harm to reach our livestock and wildlife,” he said in a statement.

The disaster declaration allows him to mobilize the Texas New World Screwworm Response Team to “fully utilize all state government prevention and response resources to prevent the re-emergence of this destructive parasite” and that “Texas is prepared to fully eradicate this pest if need be,” he said.

The governor added that the order directs the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Animal Health Commission to create the response team and partner with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to respond to the parasite.

Screwworms can infect livestock, wildlife, and people, health and agriculture authorities have said. The insect’s maggots can burrow into the skin, inflicting serious and, in some cases, fatal damage to an organism.

In a notice on its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it is usually found in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and South America. People are at a higher risk of contracting the infection if they travel to such areas or are around livestock in rural places where the screwworm flies are located and if they also have an open wound, according to the agency.

“NWS infestations are very painful,” the CDC says on its website, using an acronym for the New World screwworm. “If you have an NWS infestation, you may see maggots (larvae) around or in an open wound. They could also be in your nose, eyes, or mouth.”

The declaration from Abbott comes as the USDA said that, as of Jan. 22, the screwworm has not yet been detected in the United States.

Screwworms were previously found in the United States but were eradicated in 1966, the USDA said. Officials also eliminated a small outbreak reported in the Florida Keys in 2017, it said.

In August, officials said the first human case of a New World screwworm was detected in a person in Maryland who had at the time recently traveled to El Salvador. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told The Epoch Times at the time that the risk to the public posed by the infection was “very low.”

That same month, the USDA said it would launch an initiative to combat the spread of the parasite in the United States, describing it as a national security threat. The plan includes bolstering funding to technologies that will bolster U.S. sterile fly production that it said would prevent its spread as well as the construction of a “domestic sterile screwworm production facility” in Texas, it added.