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The Secretary for the Department of Agriculture says the U.S. food supply is “not at risk” despite officials confirming additional cases of the New World screwworm in Texas.
The New World screwworm poses a risk to livestock, wildlife, pets and, in uncommon cases, people as it is a parasitic fly whose larvae burrow into the flesh of living warm-blooded animals.
However, during a recent interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “this is not a virus, it’s not a disease, it’s just a little pest, a larva that lands in a calf’s wound, for example, and it can be treated.” The newest case was detected on a ranch roughly five miles from the first positive case, and it marks the first screwworm cases since the 1960s.
According to Secretary Rollins, the U.S. will lean on the same playbook as it did starting in the late 1950s, which includes releasing sterile insects to suppress the pest’s population.
