(24 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cintalapa, Chiapas, Mexico – 23 July 2025
1. Various of cattle
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Edi Valencia Santos, ranch caretaker:
"A lot of us are treating this with gasoline. Gasoline is the most practical thing, since it’s what we have here in the countryside, but they’re recommending that we don’t use gasoline because we’re also harming the animals."
3. Various of worker herding cattle
4. Mid of veterinarian Alfredo Chávez by cattle
5. Chávez pulling worms out of cattle with tweezers
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Alfredo Chávez, veterinarian:
"We have practically not had any official support. We reported this immediately to the CPA and the SENASICA (agencies) and they gave us tubes for samples, we took the samples, reported them, and that’s where it ended. But beyond that, we haven’t received any support from any institution."
7. Various of Chávez petting bull
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Edi Valencia Santos, ranch caretaker:
"A new plant is going to open, but it will be a year-long process for it to produce enough flies to combat this plague. But for now, we as ranchers are suffering because we’re paying out of our own pockets."
9. Various of cattle
STORYLINE:
With Mexican cattle again barred this month from entry to the United States over fears of spreading a flesh-eating parasite, ranchers and veterinarians in southern Mexico, hundreds of miles from the border, are fighting what has U.S. agricultural authorities so on edge.
In the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, the New World screwworm fly’s rapid spread appears to have caught most ranchers off guard, despite memories of previous outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the town of Cintalapa, Ranch caretaker Edi Valencia Santos said that Mexican government officials have come to his community to talk to people with livestock, but so far without resources.
He has had five infected animals on the ranch.
Meanwhile, the price of medicines used to treat livestock infected with the screwworm have soared in price.
That has led some to fall back on home remedies like applying gasoline or lime to open wounds to coax out the worms.
In addition to the cost of the medicine, treatment requires careful monitoring and usually involves multiple courses.
Any open wound, even very small ones, are an invitation to the fly to lay its eggs.
Veterinarian Alfredo Chávez, left Chiapas to study in 1989, so he says he missed seeing the effects of that outbreak, but now he’s seen cases multiply in his corner of Chiapas over the past month.
He’s heard of dozens of cases in the area now and treated about a dozen himself. It’s not just cows either — sheep, pigs, cats and dogs are targets as well.
Armed with a pair of blue tweezers and an aerosol spray that helps draw the maggots out, Chávez moves from animal to animal.
He puts maggots in plastic tubes as samples, which he provides to agricultural authorities.
But beyond providing the tubes and encouraging ranchers to report cases, he said the government has not provided much help.
"We have practically not had any official support,” he said.
The U.S. had just gradually started to reopen the border to cattle imports this month after an earlier suspension in May, when the Trump administration said it would close it again after an infected animal was found in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
While prevalent in Central America, the concern is that the fly is moving north.
U.S. officials worry that if the fly reaches Texas, its maggots could cause large economic losses, something that happened decades ago.
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