NWS Prevention Efforts Update

An update on New World screw worm prevention efforts across the country, beginning with a newly awarded construction contract for a sterile fly production facility on the Moore Air Force Base in Texas.

“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, that is USDA Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory programs, Dudley Hoskins, who said the facility aims to produce 100 million sterile flies by November of 2027 in the meantime, construction continues on another sterile fly facility at the top of Mexico”

These efforts are part of the US days, five pronged strategy to combat New World screw worm, strengthening infrastructure on sterile fly production, while also emphasizing surveillance, animal movement restrictions and education, according to Hoskins,

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

“In addition to that, an established facility continues to release

sterile flies. We're still relying on our Copeck facility in Panama that produces about 100 million sterile flies per week. We continue to disperse those wherever and however we can when we're seeing highest risk movement of flies in Mexico.”

Hoskins says another tool is the facility that was constructed by USDA in Tampico, Mexico last November.