US confirms nation’s first travel-associated human screw-worm case linked to Central American outbreak

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Sunday reported the first human case in the United States of travel-associated New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, from an outbreak-affected country.

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The case, investigated by the Maryland Department of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was confirmed by the CDC as New World screwworm on Aug. 4, and involved a patient who returned from travel to El Salvador, HHS spokesman Andrew G. Nixon said in an email to Reuters.

Earlier, Reuters reported that beef industry sources said last week that the CDC had confirmed a case of New World screwworm in a person in Maryland who had traveled to the United States from Guatemala.

Mr. Nixon did not address the discrepancy on the source of the human case.

“The risk to public health in the United States from this introduction is very low,” he said.

The US government has not confirmed any cases in animals this year.

The differing accounts from the US government and industry sources on the human case are likely to further rattle an industry of cattle ranchers, beef producers and livestock traders already on high alert for potential US infestations as screwworm has moved northward from Central America and southern Mexico.

The government’s confirmation of a screwworm case comes just over a week after US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins traveled to Texas to announce plans to build a sterile fly facility there as part of efforts to combat the pest.