More than a year after the United States first blocked cattle imports from Mexico to protect against the New World screwworm, the two countries are working on projects to try to stop the parasite’s northward spread.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday that it has chosen a contractor to build a new sterile fly facility at Moore Air Base in Edinburg, Texas, close to the easternmost part of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Experts say facilities like that are the best bet at containing the parasite. The deadly New World screwworm breached the Mexico-Guatemala border in late 2024, prompting the United States to close its border with Mexico to cattle.
Sterile fly facilities release flies into the environment that don’t produce offspring to whittle down the population of their flesh-eating larvae.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Monday that a facility in southern Mexico is expected to reopen in two months, after the USDA invested $21 million to increase fly production at the plant.
The new Texas facility is set to be fully operational by November of next year.
“This first of its kind facility on U.S. soil will ensure we are not reliant on other countries for sterile flies,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement.
Mexican ranchers in the state of Sonora have been eager for the United States to reopen the border to cattle. The parasite has not been reported in the Mexican state directly south of Arizona.
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