USDA Continues Work On Multiple Sterile Fly Facilities To Combat NWS

What’s the latest when it comes to New World Screwworm prevention efforts from the USDA? 

Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Dudley Hoskins noting the goal for the Texas facility is production of 100 million sterile flies by November 2027.  USDA is partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in constructing the facility. Meanwhile, development of a sterile fly facility at Matapa, Mexico continues.

“If the current timeline holds, we're looking forward to having that facility online sometime this summer with sterile fly production coming out of that facility shortly after construction is completed,” said Hoskins.

The undersecretary notes the construction and development projects are part of USDA's five-pronged approach to combat NWS.

“Enhancing our capability and infrastructure and enhancing the sterile fly production that we currently have,” he added.

Along with aspects such as surveillance animal movement restrictions and education in the case of sterile insect technology and sterile fly production.

“We're still relying on our facility in Panama that produces about a hundred million sterile flies per week," Hoskins said.  "We continue to disperse those wherever and however we can when we're seeing highest risk movement of flies in Mexico.”

Coordinated with the dispersal of sterile NWS flies such as the undersecretary described with additional examples including...

"The secretary [Brooke Rollins] has initiated an additional dispersal facility in Tampico, Mexico that we completed construction on last November," Hoskins said.  "It helps us be more nimble in our aerial dispersal in Mexico, places hard to get to. So that's been a critical asset to us in that toolbox. Most recently, the secretary was in McAllen, Texas at Moore Air Base and participated in a ribbon cutting ceremony to bring the new dispersal facility online in McAllen. That dispersal facility is operational. It's dispersing flies as we speak.”

For more information about NWS and USDA’s efforts, visit the USDA's Screwworm.gov.

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