New World screwworm has reached Texas. Agriculture Secretary Rollins responds.

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has responded to news that the New World screwworm has reached Texas.

She said she has sent a strike team to the South Texas border to assist.

The parasitic fly could put Texas’ $15 billion cattle industry in jeopardy.

The USDA tested a sample from La Pryor in Zavala County at the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, lowa. It was at the laboratory that the infestation of a three-week old calf, was confirmed, Rollins said during a press conference about the case. 

No other cases have been confirmed thus far. 

Here is an audio recording of a press call Rollins made to Texas media on the evening of June 3.

Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Uh today we are taking immediate action this afternoon and evening has already begun to deploy uh to contain and eradicate this uh this to the New World Screw Room in South Texas. We have number one formed a unified incident command team with the Texas Animal Health Commission and deployed our APIS response team and personnel to the area. They are already on the ground. And you'll hear from our undersecretary. Uh, and APHUS is a part of his team, Dudley Hoskins, in just a minute. We have established a 20-kilometer infested zone around the detection and implementing quarantines, movement controls, and surveillance in this area. We have expedited targeted release of the sterile New World Screw Room flies, which is how we solve for the issue, of course, by immediately deploying a 4 million ground release chambers in the area, in addition to the 4 million sterile flies per week already being released aerially in the area. We are increasing trapping and surveillance for new world screw room flies along the border just outside of the dispersal area. We are implementing new world screwworm surveillance for the new world screwworm flies along the border and just outside of the dispersal area. We are implementing additional surveillance and management strategies in wildlife and of course conducting targeted outreach in the um in the local area as well as across the state. To date, as I mentioned, there have been no further detections of New World Spirit Room in the United States. Uh, top line, this pest does not cause any sort of a food safety issue. It is not a disease, but simply an insect that feeds on living tissues. Once removed and cleaned, animals treated early enough, including the calf that uh that we're talking about, the eight-week-old bovine, that uh calf and those animals, if they're treated early enough, will recover and are safe to enter the food supply system. Again, if we all work together and follow the animal treatment protocols and movement restriction guidance, there is no reason to believe that this incursion will result in an establishment of the pest in our country. A quick history: the New World Screw Room has been present in the southwestern United States on first record in 1842, first documented as a significant problem in the southeast in 1933, following shipments of infested animals in the southwest. In 1935, almost 100 years ago, USDA launched an educational program instructing producers on how to prevent livestock infestations. In 1941, USDA announced the success of a program to develop SMER-62, which was a targeted new world screw worm uh insecticide aimed at reducing producer losses. The 1950s to the 1960s is what all of us in Texas are very familiar with, but that is when radiation was identified as an effective way to sterilize new world screw worm flies. 1951, USDA established the first test site in Florida during the fall of that year, proving that sterile flies can eliminate the new world screw worm populations. By 1958, a mass sterile fly production facility in Florida opened, and by early 1959, the USDA declared the Southeast U.S. officially free of the New World Screwworm. In 1962, the Southwest Screwworm eradication program began, including the construction of a mass production facility in Mission, Texas. States in the Southwest eradication area, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma were uh the subjects of that production facility. In 1966, the continental U.S. is declared free of indigenous New World Screwworm and stayed that way for many, many, many years. 1986, the U.S. Mexico Commission succeeds in pushing the New World Screwworm out of Mexico. That was 1986, establishing a biological barrier along the Mexico-Guatemala border. Between 1994 and 2006, USDA strategically deploys sterile flies and clears New World Screw Room entirely from Central America. Belize in Guatemala, 1994, El Salvador, 1995, Honduras, 1996, Nicaragua, 1999, Costa Rica, 2000, and Panama, 2006. Of course, all of this in an effort to protect American livestock. In 2006, USDA, we partnered with Panama to build a new sterile fly production facility with sterile flies that began to be dispersed in 2009, that today remains the sole facility producing these flies. Of course, we are solving for that, as many of you know, with the big facility we've broken ground on in South Texas, and also investing in a facility in Metapa, Mexico, which will be online hopefully by the end of this month. In 2016, the New World Screw Room was confirmed as a as a, let's see here, sorry, everybody. In 2016, New World Screw Room was found in Deer, in the National Key Deer Refuge in the Florida Keys. APHIS immediately began releasing sterile flies in Florida's affected areas as part of the aggressive eradication campaign. And by 2017, about a year later, the screw room was successfully eradicated from Florida. This success was a collaborative effort between USDA and other agencies. But here we are in 2021, the New World Screwworm, for the first time in decades, breached the biological barrier in Panama at the Darien Gap, which had successfully contained to South America, as I mentioned, for four or five decades, 50 years. In 2023, Panama reported a significant increase in the number of New World Screw Room cases. And since 2023, beginning in 2021, that uh New World School Room has spread northward through Central America. In 2024, November 2024, it reached the southern states of Mexico. And uh and we all, as you know, have been talking and tracking and working around the clock to contain it. But uh, but we have not, Mexico, uh, with the illicit movement of cattle and um and not having enough sterile flies, certainly has led us to today, June 3rd, 2026, uh, the U.S. confirming its first New World screw room case in the state of Texas since 1966. Uh so just uh again, a quick history. I thought it would be really good to level set this conversation. Uh so our response, and uh again, I'm repeating a lot of what probably many of you have heard from us over the last year and and four months, but for those of you that are new to uh to this reporting and and to being part of our uh communication effort, um, we will we will do a quick summary. The sterile insect technique, when paired with surveillance, movement restrictions, and education and outreach is the most effective strategy we have for controlling this pest. The sterile insect is not only the most effective tool we have, but it is also considered one of the most environmental-friendly insect pest control methods ever developed. USDA has invested heavily in the sterile insect production since New World Screw Room cases started increasing uh in the Trump administration in the last year and four months. Since the outbreak in Central America began, uh USDA, we have expanded operations at the production plant uh in Panama, allowing it to brute produce over 100 million sterile new world screwworm flies per week, which have been dispersed in affected countries, including Mexico, to slow the spread of the parasite. I think it is important to note that all the models last year showed that the New World Screwworm would be in Texas by late summer, early fall of last year. So um I know there is not anything to celebrate today, but I do want to give a shout out to the team at APHIS, our Texas Animal Health Commission, Dr. Dingis and his team, uh, all of our friends in Texas, we have been able to successfully keep it out of Texas a year longer almost than what was thought, which has allowed us to prepare for today. In May 2025, USDA invested another $21 million to help Mexico renovate an existing production facility in Matapa, Mexico. This production facility will provide an additional 60 to 100 million sterile flies a week. That's in addition to the 100 million from Panama. With continued support from our experts, Mexico expects production to begin in, as I mentioned, just a few weeks in June. And in April of this year, we announced our additional investment of $750 million to build the largest facility on record at the Moore Air Base in South Texas, further increasing our ability to protect U.S. agriculture from this threat. When this facility is fully operational, it will have the capacity to produce 300 million uh sterile flies per week. This facility is expected to be operational in the fall of 2027 next year. Also, our USDA National Veterinary Stockpile stands ready to assist and will provide resources, including treatments, equipment, and logistics support uh to this response as needed. And uh, I'll also note it's not in my notes, but the FDA, uh, our teams uh over at the FDA and over at HHS have been extremely helpful in emergency authorization of many of the uh the uh treatments that are now going to be available now that we have an identified and confirmed case in America. So we'll have more on that in the days to come. But we've already deployed, we've got a plane that's headed down to South Texas right now with a lot of that treatment stockpile. The call to action here, the response to this pest will entail our producers and companion animal owners to follow animal movement guidelines and restrictions and not move animals near the zone without proper treatment and inspections in place. This fly typically moves great distances because humans move animals, not because the fly flies to new areas. This is a really important point. The only way this spreads is through animal movement. It's not because the fly flies tens of miles or hundreds of miles on its own. And this was always the problem with the last administration, the open border policies, the movement of humans uh and their livestock from South America through Central America and through Mexico, and then of course the illicit movement of cattle with the cartels. For us to contain this pest in the limited area where it currently exists until everyone, respecting the common good of all Texas producers and following our um our protocols and our animal movement restrictions. Uh, again, I was on a call with about 50 of our great Texas cattle ranchers a couple of hours ago uh and getting their feedback. Obviously, they're on the ground as well, but they are gonna be our key partners in all of this as we're working to contain and then eradicate. We've worked with the FDA and also the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, uh, first Marty McCary, now Kyle Diamantis at FDA, and of course Administrator Lee Zeldon at the EPA over the past year to secure effective products and to have these materials approved for our animals and at doses that are deemed safe for our food supply. Producers uh will work with their veterinarians on determining what product is right for their situation. We have many products available, thankfully. Um, and of course, they should only be used according to their label restriction. For lists of EPA and FDA approved products and all information, visit our website that's been set up now for several months at screwworm.gov, screwworm.gov. Not all products are labeled for all animal species or life stages of the animal, milk, meat, age, et cetera. That is why it is imperative that our producers work with their local veterinary in treating this. Again, this pest does not cause a food safety issue. There is no compromise to our food supply chains, and there will not be. It is not a disease, as I mentioned, but simply an insect. The final key messages, and then I'll turn this over to our Under Secretary Hoskins, USDA will continue to work with the State Departments of Agriculture, animal health officials, industry, and producers to mitigate the economic impacts of restrictions as much as possible, including negotiating with our trading partners to regionalize any trade restrictions on live animals, limiting them to defined geographic areas. Number two, we urge all residents in the area to check your pets. This is not just a livestock issue. It's not just a cattle issue, it is a uh pet issue as well. And in fact, in some of the cases that have been found within 2030, 60 miles of the Mexican border in Mexico, many of those were feline cats and dogs. And uh, so the pet issue is really, really important. We have deployed additional trained dogs, our USDA dogs, down to the border that will be working with all crossing and all pets that are crossing, uh, and we'll be limiting those pretty significantly now going forward. We are also looking and asking all residents to look for draining or enlarged wounds and signs of discomfort in animals, looking for the screw worm larva, which look like maggots and eggs in or around body openings. Uh, the one that was found today was actually in the umbilical cord of, as we mentioned, an eight-week bovine. If you suspect your animal is infested with screw worm, contact your state animal health official or the USDA area veterinarian in charge immediately. All their information, contact, et cetera, is on the website, screwworm.gov. Um, screwworms do not infest meat, they do not infest fruits, they do not infest vegetables or other food sources. Our Food Safety and Inspection Service, FSIS, ensures that the nation's commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products uh are safe and properly labeled. And under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, FSIS inspection personnel uh must inspect all eligible animal species unless they are exempt or covered by a state inspection program. Finally, any evidence of scroom infestation in an animal would be identified during these inspections, and any contaminated product from an infected animal would not be allowed to enter the food supply. So uh we're obviously approaching this very aggressively from every angle possible. Uh Texas is where we are right now on ground zero, but obviously keeping in very close contact with Arizona, uh New Mexico, and California, and uh we'll continue to do so. Again, tonight is just for the Texas press. Tomorrow we'll be doing a much larger call for All Press. Uh, and we are planning to, if it's not a daily update call, then we will uh be updating every other day. But we'll be keeping the screwroom.gov uh website live. So look there for any updates. And uh obviously our USDA social media, our USDA X account, the AFUS X account, and my account, uh Sec Rollins, S E C R O L O I N S will also be using to provide updates.