Eating Threat Intensifies: Second Texas Screwworm Case Triggers Disaster Declaration and International Ban.

 

Saturday, June 6, 2026

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has officially confirmed a second positive case of the devastating New World screwworm in South Texas, escalating biosecurity fears across the North American agricultural sector. The secondary detection has prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to expand a statewide disaster declaration and triggered an immediate, sweeping ban on Texas livestock imports by the Canadian government.

The latest infection was confirmed on Friday, June 5, 2026, by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in a one-month-old calf. The animal was discovered in Zavala County, located approximately 5.6 miles away from where the nation’s first case in over half a century was identified in a three-week-old calf just two days prior. The twin detections represent the first time the flesh-eating parasite has breached United States borders since its widespread eradication in 1966.

The New World screwworm is a highly destructive tropical parasite whose larvae, or maggots, burrow into the living tissue of warm-blooded animals. Female flies seek out open wounds—even those as minor as a tick bite or a newborn calf's umbilical area—to deposit their eggs. Left untreated, the feeding larvae destroy living flesh, causing extreme pain, severe tissue damage, and ultimately death.

In response to the rapidly developing crisis, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced a temporary emergency ban late Friday on all livestock imports originating from Texas. Under the new cross-border restrictions, any cattle or horses that have spent time in Texas within 21 days of reaching the border will be strictly barred from entering Canada, creating an immediate ripple effect through the multi-billion-dollar international beef supply chain.

At the state level, Governor Abbott expanded an ongoing disaster declaration to encompass Zavala and neighboring Uvalde counties, making all state personnel available to accelerate biological defense measures. A strict 20-kilometer (12-mile) quarantine and infestation zone remains active around the detection sites, strictly prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animals out of the area without explicit veterinary inspection and clearance.

Federal and state agricultural teams are aggressively deploying a specialized biological eradication technique that originally wiped out the pest decades ago. The USDA has launched aerial operations to disperse 2 million sterile male screwworm flies twice a week over the quarantine zone, while simultaneously shipping an additional 4 million sterile flies weekly to 24 strategic ground release chambers. Because female screwworm flies mate only once in their lifetime, pairing with sterile males ensures they produce infertile eggs, systematically collapsing the wild population.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges have urged ranchers, veterinarians, and pet owners statewide to inspect all animals daily for signs of suspicious larvae or unhealed wounds. While the USDA emphasized that the nation’s food supply remains entirely safe—as the parasite does not infest processed meat—officials warned that a wider summer outbreak could inflict up to $1.8 billion in devastating economic losses to the American livestock industry.

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