“From a food safety standpoint, no one needs to worry,” VanHoy says. “Food in the U.S. from livestock is extensively inspected, and there will not be an instance where maggots are going to be in your meat. What may change is the cost of our meat, just because of the increased effort, treatment, and surveillance.”
In addition to releasing sterile flies across Central America and Mexico to curb the spread, the USDA told National Geographic they’ve released 131 million sterile male screwworms into Texas in preparation for an outbreak since early 2026, and they’re not done yet.
“Millions of flies is a large number; we still want millions more,” says Rear Admiral Michael Schmoyer, the director of the USDA’s New World Screwworm Directorate. It’s the same method that initially eradicated the species from the U.S., ended the subsequent smaller outbreaks, and held the population at the Panamanian border for so many years.
“The females only mate one time, so we’re playing a numbers game, releasing millions of sterile males, just hoping you know we have enough to dilute out the natural population,” VanHoy explains. “I think that we should not panic. There’s a lot of really strong programs in place, and we know that we’ve battled this successfully before. We have history on our side.”
For now, the Panamanian facility known as COPEG produces all the sterile flies used to curtail outbreaks, but new facilities, including one in Mexico and one in Texas, could eventually increase the production of sterile flies.
How are screwworm cases treated?
“This is easily detectable. It is easily treatable,” says Schmoyer. “Case in point, the first case in the United States, I received pictures of that particular calf yesterday. It’s doing great, so it’s a great success story. The faster people can tell us things, the faster we can treat this one.”