By Ryan Hanrahan
Progressive Farmer’s Jennifer Carrico reported that “USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has shifted sterile New World screwworm (NWS) fly release to include into Texas to help efforts to stop the northern spread of the pest.”
“In an APHIS news release late Friday, APHIS stated the new dispersal area, or polygon, will include operations about 50 miles into Texas, along the U.S. border with the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, where 100 million sterile flies will be released per week,” Carrico reported. “Strong surveillance will continue along the border and in Texas as well.”
“‘At Secretary (Brooke) Rollins’ direction, our highest priority is protecting the United States from screwworm,’ Dudley Hoskins, under secretary of Marketing and Regulatory Programs for USDA said in the Friday statement,” according to Carrico’s reporting. “‘The northernmost active case of NWS in Mexico is still about 200 miles away from the border, but we’ve seen cases continue to spread in Tamaulipas and further south in Mexico, so we are proactively shifting our polygon as we make every effort to prevent NWS from reaching our border.'”
“The sterile insect technique has been used since it was first used in 1936 to fight NWS. The same technique is used in present day for eradication,” Carrico reported. “The flies are sterilized using ionizing radiation prior to release. Since the flies only mate once, no offspring are produced, thus drastically reducing the wild NWS population. This, paired with surveillance, movement restrictions, education and outreach, should help control and eradicate NWS.”
Agri-Pulse’s Noah Wicks reported that “three total screwworm cases had been detected in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon as of Jan. 27, though none were classified as ‘active,’ according to a USDA tracker. Meanwhile, Tamaulipas had eight active cases out of 20 overall cases, while San Luis Potosí had five active cases out of 11 total cases.”
Source : illinois.edu