Belize Is the Last to Report a Human Screwworm Case

And if you are wondering how the screwworm larvae are removed from the wound, Kim Bautista confirmed that they are extracted manually. We also heard from Deputy Director of Animal Health at the Belize Agricultural Health Authority, Doctor Salustino Pech. He says Belize is the last country in the region to report a human case of New World Screwworm. We asked him to explain the process of infection and if a person must first come in contact with an infected animal.

 

Dr. Salustino Pech, Deputy Director, Animal Health BAHA

It is at random. The fly is always going to be looking for food and it will feed off nectar, but it requires the tissue or wherever there is blood for the worm to develop. So the larvae eats the tissue, not the fly. So the fly will fly around and if the wound is there and it is time to deposit the eggs it is going to find that wound. It does not differentiate if it is a dog, a cat, a horse, if it is a cow, a sheep, a goat, a pig or a monkey. Wherever it smells blood from a warm blooded animal it is going to deposit there. Just a fly itself it can deposit five hundred eggs, that is five hundred worms and that same fly can come back and deposit more eggs. So, that is the importance or reporting because whenever we take samples we can differentiate the different stages of the worm indicating if there is a fly around. If we get to see that there is a different stages, it could be the same fly deposited multiple times, normally they are going to deposit five times. So you can imagine the amount of worms a wound can have. And those worms are going to eat all of the tissue. So we have been last country in the region with a human case. So we have been doing really well with our surveillance and treating but, well, it was just a matter of time.”