The Fall and Rise of Screwworm

# Summary A flesh-eating parasite called the screwworm has been detected in Texas and New Mexico for the first time since the 1980s, after a decades-long eradication effort using sterile male flies had successfully eliminated it from North America. The screwworm, whose larvae burrow into living tissue of animals and are typically fatal if untreated, was controlled through a joint US-Panamanian barrier program that dropped millions of sterile males to prevent breeding, but this barrier failed around 2023 and the parasite has since spread northward from South America.