Utah agricultural officials say they're closely monitoring the U.S. screwworm situation after the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed an infestation of the parasite with flesh-eating larvae in Texas.
The Texas State Operations Center during Texas' response to the new world screwworm in Austin, Texas, on Friday. Utah agriculture officials said the species poses no public health or food safety concern in Utah , but they're monitoring it.
No immediate threat to Utah's food supply; vigilance urged for farmers and ranchers.
"We want to be very clear that there is no public health or food safety concern with regard to new world screwworm at this time," said Kelly Pehrson, commissioner of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, in a statement on Thursday. "While we are ready to take action and eliminate it, does not currently pose a risk to the food supply. " Screwworms are a fly species that is attracted to the wounds on animals.
It will lay eggs next to wounds, which hatch and burrow into the wound, eating the live tissue of the animal. This can lead to severe infections and death, said Amanda Price, Utah's state veterinarian. It is treatable if caught quickly, she explains, which is why she urges farmers, ranchers and pet owners to remain vigilant.
The species was found in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 50 miles from the Mexico border, marking the first Texas case since 1966 and the first in the U.S. since the 1970s,Price told KSL that she and other state agricultural officials had been tracking the species' potential U.S. revival well before Wednesday's announcement. They started watching in 2023, as screwworm cases began to increase in Central America and creep northward into Mexico — and now the U.S. "We're a little bit concerned that this is just the tip of the iceberg in the U.S.," she said.
"If they do come to Utah, it will probably be through the movement of animals into the state from an infested area. " U.S. officials have shut down U.S.-Mexico border ports, hoping to limit screwworms from entering the country on cattle and horses. Yet, that doesn't stop wildlife or the flies themselves from crossing the border. Traps and monitoring programs have been set up to limit the migration.
Officials have imposed a quarantine zone to control the spread of New World screwworm, which was found in a calf in La Pryor, Texas. Texas officials established a 12-mile quarantine zone surrounding La Pryor in response to the first confirmed case in the U.S. Previous infestations, the AP reported, caused tens of millions of dollars of losses, or billions in today's dollars.
Price said she doesn't know what the new U.S. case will mean for the country's beef supply, but she believes it may not mean much since she said many Southern states have been preparing for this situation for "a long time.
" She believes the same mix that helped eradicate the screwworm decades ago will be applied now that it has returned, on top of the improved medications and tools available in the industry. Screwworms aren't the only problem that Utah agricultural officials are monitoring. Department officials announced on Monday that a dairy sample recently collected in Cache County tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, resulting in new weekly surveillance in the region.
The virus spread through millions of birds since a countrywide outbreak in 2022, leading to higher egg and chicken prices. It was alsoUtah agricultural officials say it's not an "immediate public health concern" at the moment.
"At present, no major impacts to the food supply chain are anticipated," they wrote in a statement. "There have been no confirmed cases of in humans in Utah. "The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
Carter Williams is a reporter for KSL. He covers Salt Lake City, statewide transportation issues, outdoors, the environment and weather. He is a graduate of Southern Utah University. Box Elder County data center foes sue to reverse decision stalling their efforts against project
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