How Texas Is Combating the Screwworm Outbreak: Texas Brief

Racing to Contain the Screwworm

The (relatively) good news when it comes to a case of screwworm detected in a three-week-old calf in South Texas—the first US case in nearly a decade—is that it’s treatable in animals and poses no threat to food safety.

The bad news: A broader outbreak of the flesh-eating parasite could threaten an already-small domestic cattle herd and hinder the Trump administration’s efforts to tackle record-high beef prices, Ilena Peng and Joe Lovinger report.

Preventing a wider outbreak requires fencing in the screwworm fly, which has been gradually spreading north through Mexico over ...