AN ACCIDENT in a lab that sterilises screw-worm flies has led to an outbreak of the flesh-eating larvae in cattle, costing at least $2 million to clean up.
The lab in the Chiapas region of south-east Mexico produces more than 150 million sterile screw-worm flies per week as part of the US Department of Agriculture’s screw worm eradication programme. Until the incident the programme had eliminated the devastating parasite Cochliomyia hominivorax from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and most of Panama.
Technicians at the plant irradiate male screw-worm pupae to render them sterile. They then release the mature flies into infected areas…
