Farmscape for August 5, 2026

The Director of National Preparedness and Incident Coordination with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Veterinary Services says the goal of the New World Screwworm Response Playbook is eradication.
Since June 3rd, when New World Screwworm was identified near the Mexican border in Texas there have been 44 detections in Texas and New Mexico, including 22 in cattle, 14 in sheep, five in goats and three in dogs.
A webinar hosted by the Swine Health Information Center and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians discusses New World Screwworm Response Planning, Available Resources and Outreach Strategies for Producers.
Dr. Lindsay Holmstrom, the Director of National Preparedness and Incident Coordination with the USDA APHIS, says it's important to know what the parasite looks like, to be checking animals regularly and reporting cases right away.

Quote-Dr. Lindsay Holmstrom-USDA APHIS:
We developed what's called the New World Screwworm Response Playbook.
You're probably very familiar with the African Swine Fever Red Book, our response plan, Foot and Mouth Disease Red Book, our response plan.
We did develop two playbooks for African Swine Fever that you can go to and then we went directly to creating a playbook for New World Screwworm.
A playbook is still a response plan so, the intent here was to develop something that just provides that very quick, easy, kind of actionable type of written document so that very quickly and efficiently states and responders can implement the response activities that are within the playbook.
The goal of the playbook is eradication so, it's still focused on eradication.
And we do have a number of additional guidance documents or supplemental materials that are referenced in the playbook.
They're also on our website and those guidance materials really provide more of the details for certain key activities that are implemented within the playbook.

Dr. Holmstrom says the response plan focuses on animal health, is designed to be applicable to any state and is flexible and can be adjusted as new data becomes available.
Further information, including links to available resources, can be accessed at swinehealth.org.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers