New Mexico officials worry about New World screwworm spreading into state

The New World screwworm, aptly named for the maggot’s behavior of burrowing into flesh and causing serious if not fatal wounds, often in animals, advanced northward through Mexico last year after being mainly contained in Central America. Before U.S. officials declared it eradicated in the 1960s, the wounds from parasites would kill wild and domestic animals, sometimes at a rate of one in five animals in an infected herd.