The first travel-related human case of a flesh-eating parasite was detected in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Sunday.
A Maryland resident contracted the New World screwworm after returning home from El Salvador, Reuters first reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the case was related to the parasitic fly on Aug. 4, according to HHS.
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The outlet, citing beef industry sources, previously reported that a Maryland patient contracted the parasite after visiting Guatemala. It remains unclear whether that report pertains to the same person.
HHS declined to comment directly on the discrepancy.
“This is the first human case of travel-associated New World screwworm myiasis [parasitic infestation of fly larvae] from an outbreak-affected country identified in the United States,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the Washington Examiner. “The risk to public health in the United States from this introduction is very low.”
While the risk of human infection in the U.S. is low, the risk to livestock is high, posing a possible threat to the nation’s food supply. A screwworm outbreak among livestock could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of millions to billions of dollars annually.
The Department of Agriculture estimated that such an outbreak would cost Texas about $1.8 billion per year due to livestock deaths, labor costs, and medication expenses. Cattle producers would incur $735 million to $745 million in losses each year, according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.
Texas’s agriculture industry, which boasts roughly 2 million direct jobs, is worth $867 billion.
“All of this is at risk because of the New World screwworm,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said earlier this month.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins visited Austin, Texas, on Aug. 15 to announce a five-part plan to eradicate the New World screwworm. The plan, which includes cooperation with Panama and Mexico, involves constructing a domestic facility to breed up to 300 million sterile flies per week to combat New World screwworm infestations.
The idea is that the bred flies used to target the New World screwworm would eventually die out, as they would be sterilized with radiation, preventing eggs laid by females from being fertilized. This strategy worked effectively during the 1960s, when the U.S. last experienced a New World screwworm outbreak.
The pest was successfully eliminated in 1966, but reemerged as part of a small outbreak in the Florida Keys less than a decade ago. The sterile technique was also used to combat that outbreak, which lasted only five months from October 2016 to March 2017.
The New World screwworm reemerged earlier this year, spreading northward from Central America into Mexico. The insect poses a significant health risk to cattle and other livestock because it often lays eggs in openings or wounds on warm-blooded animals, resulting in myiasis. If left untreated, the host could eventually die from the flesh-eating fly larvae once the eggs hatch.
NEW WORLD SCREWWORM: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PARASITE THREATENING THE FOOD SUPPLY
The parasite gets its name from burrowing, or screwing, into healthy tissue.
New World screwworm cases have been detected in various Central American countries, including Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador. They were also detected in northern Mexico near the Texas border last month. The pest remains endemic to Central America, South America, and several Caribbean islands.