A flesh-eating fly is advancing towards the US border – can it be stopped?

By Richard Wall, Emeritus Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

A flesh eating parasitic fly has spread north through Mexico to within a few hundred miles of the US southern border.

The New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax) lays its eggs in open wounds and in the orifices of live, warm-blooded animals – including, occasionally, humans. The maggots then devour the animal’s flesh, causing devastating lesions that can quickly kill the infested host.

Before the 1950s, it was found in the southern states of the…

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