- The US government plans to breed and release millions of sterile screwworm flies in Texas and Mexico to combat the re-emergence of the flesh-eating insect.
- The New World Screwworm lays eggs in the open wounds of warm-blooded animals, including livestock and humans, with the hatched larvae burrowing into flesh and potentially killing the host.
- The strategy involves breeding flies, irradiating them to induce sterility, and then releasing them so that sterile males mate with wild females, leading to unfertilized eggs and a reduction in the screwworm population.
- Screwworms were previously thought to have been eradicated in the US by 1966 using a similar sterile insect technique, but have recently re-emerged in Texas following an outbreak in Mexico.
- To support this new program, a breeding factory will open in southern Mexico next July, followed by a distribution center in southern Texas to manage the release of the sterile Flies.
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