The Department of Health and Human Services says the first case of a New World screwworm infection in a human has been identified in the United States.
The parasitic fly larva was found in a person in Maryland who had recently returned from El Salvador.
The case was diagnosed earlier this month. HHS says the risk to public health in the United States is “very low.”
The New World screwworm fly larvae burrow into the flesh of warm-blooded animals and can be deadly. The Mexico-U.S. border has been closed to cattle for months after cases were discovered in cows in southern Mexico.
The United States eradicated the pest in the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mexico’s agriculture department have been working to stop its northward spread since it was first reported in Mexico near the Guatemala border late last year.
