By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a post on X on Monday that a Texas facility to breed sterile flies to combat screwworm will open ahead of schedule in spring 2027.
Previously, the agency said the plant would open at the end of next year.
The first U.S. infestation of the parasitic New World screwworm fly in three decades was detected in Texas in June, threatening as much as $1 billion in losses to the state’s livestock industry.
The main tool used to combat screwworm is the dispersal of sterile screwworm flies, which are mostly produced in Panama at a plant that churns out 100 million flies per week.
The planned Texas plant would produce an additional 100 million sterile flies per week by the end of 2027, according to the post on X from the USDA’s New World Screwworm Rapid Response account.
That production would reach up to 300 million per week by the end of 2028, the post said.
Experts have said about 500 million sterile flies are needed to push screwworm southward to the Darien Gap, the stretch of rainforest between Panama and Colombia.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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