Victoria Dittmar, an InSight Crime investigator, said that the screwworm, an animal that feeds on the living tissue of cattle, causing serious infections that can lead to death, is already in Mexico, as a few days ago an animal was detected that had the characteristics of this pest.
“A few days ago, it was reported that in the Catazajá toll booth in Chiapas, the authorities registered an animal that has the characteristics of this pest, but let’s say the warnings had already come before, it began, I think, in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and it spread to the north,” she reported on Aristegui En Vivo.
She warned that this pest is not spreading specifically through legal trade, but through illegal smuggling and that it is so serious that the United States temporarily stopped the importation of cattle on foot from Mexico, while Mexico is taking action to stop legal imports from Guatemala to our country.
Veterinarian Luis Fernando Guerra, Regional Coordinator of the WCS Mesoamerica & Western Caribbean Health Program, had already warned on October 15 on Aristegui En Vivo that the disease began in Panama more than a year ago, but had begun to rise to Honduras.
In addition, he explained that the screwworm is a larva that is placed by flies in the wounds of animals, which begins to eat the laceration, so it can cause infections and even death.
On November 25, Victoria Dittmar highlighted that the response of the authorities has been for legal trade, however, illegal trade represents 10% of the annual sale of cattle in Mexico.
She highlighted that in 2022 she carried out an investigation in which they reported that the National Service of Health, Safety and Agri-Food Quality (SENASICA) said that 800 thousand heads of cattle entered illegally per year.
“If we assume that these 800 thousand heads of cattle are processed and, let’s say, laundered, and enter the legal supply chain, we are talking about 10 percent of the annual cattle production in Mexico,” she said.
She also said that Mexico is the main cattle partner of the United States, so there is a demand that must be met.
“What we found in this investigation, where we visited several cattle production centers on the border between Mexico and Guatemala, but we also went to Central America, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, is that many cattle ranchers depend on this illegal smuggling to enter this business, to be able to compete with large producers,” she added.
Recommendations to stop the spread of the screwworm
Victoria Dittmar said that, given the entry of the screwworm into Mexico, the authorities must intervene on the key routes where cattle move.
“There are very key routes through which this cattle moves, for example in Mexico, crossings such as the one at Benemérito de las Américas in Chiapas was one of the main entrances for this cattle and there are bottlenecks on this route, for example we found that precisely Catazajá, which was where this first case of screwworm was found, is the only route that these cattle can reach the rest of the country,” he said.
He said that when the cattle arrive in that area they are already “whitewashed,” that is, they already have a tag and documentation acquired by corrupt networks to legally pass the inspections.
He added that in the medium term an intervention can be made in this area and in the long term it can facilitate the winners to access legal cattle at more competitive prices, that internal investigations can be done in the winning organizations or harmonizations to identify the corruption that allows this illegal cattle to end up in the hands of buyers.
Source: aristeguinoticias
