U.S. Confirms First Screwworm Case in Texas Since 1966, Rattling Cattle Markets

Human infections are rare but possible through open wounds; the most recent U.S. case occurred in Maryland in 2025, with rural workers and veterinarians at highest risk.

A parasite eradicated from American soil six decades ago has reappeared in a Texas calf, awakening a threat that the livestock industry had long consigned to history. The screwworm — a larva that consumes living flesh rather than dead — arrived at a moment of particular fragility, when cattle herds are at their lowest in three generations and the margins separating ranchers from ruin are razor-thin. Markets moved immediately, futures climbed, and the government mobilized, because this is not merely a biological event but a test of whether hard-won victories over nature can be held. The story o

U.S. Confirms First Screwworm Case in Texas Since 1966, Rattling Cattle Markets

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