Mexico and the United States are jointly investing in a plant in southern Mexico that will produce sterile flies in an effort to curb the spread of a flesh-eating parasite found in cattle.
The facility is aimed at stopping the northbound spread of the New World screwworm, a parasitic fly larva originally found in southern Mexico in November of last year.
The Mexico-U.S. border has been closed to cattle to prevent the spread of the parasite into the United States since May. This week marked the first phase of the border reopening, which started with the Agua Prieta-Douglas crossing between Sonora and Arizona.
Mexico says the plant in southern Mexico will open next year and generate more than 100 million sterile flies per week.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also recently announced the construction of a similar facility in Texas that will disperse sterile flies into northern Mexico.
