American infested with flesh-eating worm in first-of-its-kind case
By Luke Andrews USA Senior Health Reporter
An American was invaded with a parasitic parasite that the authorities believed that it was the first documented case in the United States.
The parasite, the new world screw wolf, eats living meat and typically causes death two weeks after tissue damage and bacterial infections.
The patient was in Maryland And he had recently returned to the United States from El Salvador, the outbreak of worm.
Ministry of Health and Human Services officials announced the case, but the risk of the public ‘very low’ stressed.
The screw worms are parasitic flies that lay eggs on the open wounds of warm -blooded animals, including humans.
They come out of the eggs in seven days and release hundreds of larvae with the razor sharp teeth that enter the living meat, as the creatures eat from wood.
Worms were eliminated in the United States in 1966, but occasional cases have been identified since the outbreaks in Central America. The last case is not the first case in the United States, but the first case in an individual traveling from a country fighting an epidemic.
Infection was first reported by the authorities at Maryland and CDC on August 4, but it was confirmed by HHS on Sunday.
After returning from El Salvador to the USA, it was found that a patient was invaded with a new world screw worm (stock image)
There was no more details about the lawsuit that the authorities said it was due to the law of privacy.
Dailymail.com, the risk of the public ‘very low’ reiterated with the CDC, but the patient was hospitalized and hospitalized or discharged.
A HHS spokesman said: ‘This is the first human case of the new world screw wolf myiahas (parasitic invasion of fly larvae) associated with a journey from a country that is influenced by the epidemic defined in the United States.
‘Public health risk in the United States is very low.’
Previous reports suggested that the individual would return to the US from Guatemala, but market officials said that the patient was traveling from El Salvador.
Screw worms rarely invad people, instead tends to target the cattle and wildlife they may be destructive.
Treatment involves hundreds of larvae and thoroughly disinfection of wounds.
If patients are treated early and screw worms are removed, it is possible to survive in an infection, but may be fatal within two weeks.
Vida worms cause occasional cases in the middle of the outbreaks in Central America, which began in 2023 in the USA. Above, an immigrant caravan who went to the United States in November 2024
The map above shows areas where the screw worm can live in blue. These include parts of Florida and Texas
In a similar situation last year, it was confirmed that a patient in Florida was invaded after returning from a holiday in the Dominican Republic.
In 2023, after visiting Brazil, a person returning to Arkansas was an invasion of screw worms in a surgical wound.
And in 2014, A traveler returned to Washington state and invaded with a parasite after visiting the Dominican Republic.
None of the patients died of invasions.
In 2016, a epidemic in the deer in Florida Keys was recorded, which led hundreds of officials to be deployed to include parasites.
Wedding worms are found in Central and South America and the Caribbean, but since 2023, traveling north.
Last year, they were first identified in Southern Mexico, which led to restrictions on beef imports from Mexico to the United States because of the fear of importing parasites.
When a female screw worm leaves fly eggs to the wound of a warm -blooded animal, the screw worms spread. It is rare to transfer directly from person to person.
The case appeared a week after the Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins visited Texas to explain his plans to build a new sterile fly facility in the state to control pests.
The plant would release a hundreds of millions of sterile screws pale flies, which would later mate with the wild ones, but would stop their eggs to stop the eggs and remove them from the egg.
In order to reveal whether any of the insects have passed to the United States, traps along the US Mexican border were also established.
USDA estimated that a screw worm epidemic may have approximately $ 1.8 billion of animal deaths, labor costs and drug expenses to the economy in Texas, the largest cattle -producing state of the United States.
