Belize on High Alert as Screwworm Confirmed in Country

Belize remains on high alert as the presence of the New World Screwworm was confirmed in the country on Boxing Day.  It is a situation that is being monitored closely as the exportation of cattle hinges on how the country controls the spread of the screwworm.  Minister of Agriculture, Jose Abelardo Mai was a guest on today’s Morning Show where he spoke on this species of worms that feed on live tissue and warm-blooded animals, posing risks for livestock.  He noted, however, that for now, the presence of the parasite is in the Toledo District which the agricultural authorities are currently looking to contain.  

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture: “We knew it was a matter of time. But I will tell you this. Belize is the last country in Central America to have screwworm. Every other country had it except Belize.”

Rene Villanueva, Host, The Morning Show: Do we have it at this time ? 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture:  “We found the first case on the 26th of December. So my boxing day was rudely interrupted. The bearer of bad news. One case. If you look at the map there now, the following case in Guatemala, I think week 51, was in Modesto Mendez. That’s right at the corner there.  And from there now to our case in Crique Sarco, our first case in Crique Sarco is about 22 miles, I think. If I’m correct, at the bottom there it says it. 11 kilometers.  If you look at the map on the south of Sarstoon you will see that all those clearing there, all that clearing is all cattle farms on Guatemala’s side. All those clearings, right, is cattle farms on Guatemalan side. If you look on the Belize side, you see a few clearings at a few spots. So you’ll see that there are cattle farms on the northern side of Sarstoon which is Belize territory now. So the fly could easily have flown in from Guatemala to our first case in Crique Sarco. But Mexico has reported three cases now. Guatemala has a bunch of cases. There’s a bulletin I have there which you can share. You can look at week 52, which is a regional report on how screwworm is moving in the area. We have been the last country. That’s the bulletin. You can look at the cases reported there and you will see that Belize only has one case. One case.”

Belize is the last country in Central America to have reported the presence of the New World Screwworm.  The presence of the worms is not unique to the region as decades ago, authorities were forced to deal with a similar invasion on livestock.  Some 30 years ago there was the need for a screwworm eradication program that expanded from the United States, to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Panama.  The program saw the creation sterilized flies that was adopted and saw Belize eradicate the then screwworms in 1992.  Fast forward today and the region is seeing a new species of the screw worm.  Minister Mai indicated that climate change is a contributing factor to this new invasion and its level of aggression.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture: “Climate change has played a very important role in all this. The higher temperatures, the life cycles are short. I did experience myself in Honduras. I took some of the sterile flies and I put them in a bottle, the water. I had a bottle, empty water bottle, made holes and I put the larvae there in the air condition. And they were supposed to become fly at 3 o’clock PM and they did not because the vehicle was cool, very cool with the air condition. So in the evening when I get to my apartment I put it in a closet, warm it up a little, right, and in an hour they were all adult flies. So it shows you how temperature plays a very important role. Hence climate change is important and of course the movement of people.”

As it relates to the measures being taken, Minister Mai said that partial funding has been gotten from the US Government through OIRSA.  He further added that Belize, having the only livestock tracking database in the region, has been able to monitor the movements of the animals across the country.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture: “If you don’t treat an animal with screwworm it will die. The time of death, the time it takes to die depends on where the wound is located. The Americans, when they saw this immediately contributed $100 million to the region. So, OIRSA for which Fermin is our representative here in Belize for a minute is managing the funds. So they have given us a part of the money to manage but government also contributed significantly to this cause right now. We had no case up to last week, Christmas, Boxing Day. But what concerned us the most at the time was that we have a market to Mexico. The Mexican farmers have been pressuring the Mexican government to ban the importation of cattle from Mexico and from Belize. A powerful farmer’s organization and they had been lobbying the government to ban the export from Belize and from Guatemala. Guatemala had cases but we did not have any cases at the time. But we moved in time to negotiate with Mexico new protocols in the event we will have. We knew we were gonna have it. It is inevitable. It was a matter of time. We knew from our risk analysis that we would have been the last country to have it. And we explained this to Mexico. Belize is also the only country in the region that has full traceability. Traceability.  So we know exactly where this car was born with that ear tag, where it come from, who is the owner. And so that being a small country gives you advantages.” 

The new world screwworm was detected in Izabal, Guatemala in late October and in Mexico in late November in the Chiapas State.