MJ Wixsom: Getting ready for the New World screwworm

I recently spent some of my spare time in an online class, and passed a course on New World screwworm. I am now qualified to serve as an inspector for this disease. I did not take the class for the certificate. I took it because this pest is moving north, and Kentucky needs veterinarians who know exactly what to look for before it ever arrives. The New World screwworm is a fly, a metallic blue-green one with orange eyes, about the size of a common housefly or a little larger. The adult does no harm by itself. The trouble starts when a female finds a wound on a warm-blooded animal and lays a mass of eggs along its edge. It does not need a large injury. A tick bite, a scratch, a newborn’s navel, or the site of a dehorning or castration is enough. Within a day the eggs hatch into larvae, and unlike the maggots most people know, which feed on dead tissue, these larvae feed on living flesh.

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