APHIS Experts Evaluated Mexican Response to New World Screwworm and Found Trade Can Begin
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins today announced risk-based port re-openings for cattle, bison, and equines from Mexico beginning as early as July 7. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), following extensive collaboration between USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) experts and their counterparts in Mexico to increase New World Screwworm (NWS) surveillance, detection, and eradication efforts, are set to begin a phased reopening of the southern ports starting with Douglas, Arizona.
Progress has been made in several critical areas since the ports were closed on May 11th, including: resolution of challenges with conducting flights in Mexico that has allowed our team to consistently conduct sterile NWS fly dispersal 7 days each week and dispersal of more than 100 million flies each week. We also sent five teams of APHIS staff to visit/ observe and gain a deeper understanding of Mexico’s NWS response and allow us the opportunity to share our feedback. We have not seen a notable increase in reported NWS cases in Mexico, nor any northward movement of NWS over the past eight weeks.
