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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced on Friday that it would temporarily restrict livestock from entering Canada from affected parts of the United States, after screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, was detected in a calf in Texas. <\/p>\n
Animals, including horses, that have been in Texas within the past 21 days will not be allowed to cross the Canadian border, the CFIA said in a news release.<\/p>\n
The move comes after U.S. officials on Wednesday announced that New World screwworm had been found in Texas \u2014 the first such case in the United States since the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Endemic to South America and the Caribbean, the flesh-eating larvae of this parasitic fly burrow into skin to feed on living tissue of an animal host, which can \u2014\u00a0on rare occasions \u2014\u00a0include humans.<\/p>\n
A highly successful eradication program wiped out screwworm from North and Central America by the mid 2000s. But since 2024 an outbreak of the parasite has spread among livestock in Mexico. <\/p>\n
Several U.S. states are also taking precautionary measures to limit the risk of spread, the CFIA noted, adding it was working closely with American officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the parasite is unlikely to become established in Canada, the CFIA urged animal owners to remain vigilant.<\/p>\n
“While our colder climate is not hospitable for the long-term establishment of the fly in Canada, they can survive shorter periods of time in the summer months,” it wrote.<\/p>\n
“Animal owners and veterinarians are encouraged to be on the lookout for signs of screwworm infestations in livestock. A wound that worsens over time and is accompanied by discharge or foul odour is also usually observed.”<\/p>\n
New World screwworm is an immediately notifiable disease under the Health of Animals Act, meaning that owners should contact a veterinarian if they suspect an infestation. Identification can only be confirmed by a laboratory, which would then be required to notify the CFIA.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-718222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}