After 1 year of New World screwworm, Mexico says it’s ready to resume cattle exports to U.S.

It’s been more than a year since Mexico reported its first case of a flesh-eating parasite in a cow near the Guatemala border.

Mexican Agriculture Secretary Julio Berdegué says his country’s cattle ranching industry is in a position to resume exporting to the United States.

The United States has paused those exports intermittently over the past year to protect its cattle herds from the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating fly larva that is deadly to warm blooded animals.

The closure has deeply affected ranchers in Sonora, who have been barred from exporting their cattle across the border for several months, despite no reports of the parasite in Arizona’s neighboring state.

Mexico has been modernizing inspection points throughout the country and working with the United States to build and expand sterile fly production facilities. Those facilities produce flies that do not have offspring when they mate, which experts say is the most effective way to dwindle the population.

Berdegué says Mexico has been able to contain 99.9% of cases far from the U.S. border in the south and southwest part of his country. He says the few cases detected in northern parts of the country have not led to spread of the parasite there.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not indicated when it will reopen the border to cattle.