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Health Care
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The Big Story
First U.S. screwworm case in years confirmed in Maryland
Federal officials in the U.S. have found the first human case of the flesh-eating parasite New World Screwworm connected to ongoing outbreaks in Central America.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked with the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) to confirm the case on Aug.4, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told The Hill.
“Currently, the risk to public health in the United States from this introduction is very low,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote in an email to The Hill.
The bug was found on a person after they returned from traveling to El Salvador, which is currently experiencing an outbreak of the parasite. A MDH spokesperson said the person has recovered from an infection caused by the parasite and did not transmit the bug to other people or animals.
What to know:
New World screwworms are a type of parasitic fly that lays eggs in warm-blooded animals such as cattle, horses and sometimes household pets, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Sometimes, the bug can infest people.
When the eggs hatch, the larvae burrow into open wounds in their host animal to feed, which can cause infection and even death. The parasite is typically found in South America and the Caribbean, according to the CDC. But recent cases of the fly infecting cattle in Mexico have prompted the Trump administration to take action.
Treatment involves removing the larvae, which may require surgery.
Detected cases in cattle in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz led to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announcing in May that the U.S. would be suspending cattle, horse and bison imports from Mexico.
The Trump administration had boosted efforts to combat the spread of the virus, including breeding millions of sterile flies to then spread over southern Texas and parts of Mexico.
Rollins’s agency estimates the parasites could cause $1.8 billion in economic damage in Texas alone.
Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.
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