Buenos Aires/Chicago/Washington (Reuters)-The United States Department of Human Health and Human Services (HHS) reported on Sunday the first human case in the US Bicheira, a meat-eating parasite, associated with travel and from a country affected by an outbreak.
The case, investigated by the Maryland Health Department and the US Disease Control and Prevention Center (CDC), was confirmed by the CDC as a newbit bicheira or bicheira fly on August 4 and involved a patient who returned from an EL Salvador trip, HHS spokesman Andrew G. Nixon said.
Previously, Reuters reported that beef sources said last week that the CDC had confirmed a newbit bicheira case in a person in Maryland who had traveled from Guatemala to the US.
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Nixon did not address the discrepancy of the origin of the human case. “The risk of this introduction to public health in the US is very low,” he said.
The US government has not confirmed any cases on animals this year.
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Divergent reports from the US government and sector sources about the human case will probably shake even more sector of ranchers, beef producers and cattle traders who are already on the maximum warning of possible US infestations, as the bicker fly has advanced to the north from central America and southern Mexico.
Confirmation of the government of a case of the bicker fly occurs just over a week after the US Department of Agriculture Department (USDA) secretary, Brooke Rollins, traveled to Texas to announce plans to build a sterile flies on site as part of the efforts to combat the plague.
The USDA estimated that a bitter fly outbreak could cost Texas’s economy, the largest state of US cattle, about $ 1.8 billion in animal deaths, labor costs and drug expenses.
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An executive of the Beef Alliance industrial group sent emails last week to about two dozens of people from the livestock and beef sectors, informing them that the CDC had confirmed a human fly case in Maryland in a person who had traveled from Guatemala to the US, according to a source who asked not to be identified and who shared the contents of emails with Reuters.
Beth Thompson, a state veterinarian of Dakota do Sul, told Reuters on Sunday that he was notified of a human case in Maryland last week by a person with direct knowledge of the fact.
The CDC directed questions to Maryland in a connection with animal health authorities, said Thompson. “We found out by other ways and then we had to go to the CDC to tell us what was going on,” she said. “They were not at all receptive. They passed on the case to the state to confirm anything that had happened or found on this traveler.”
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The bicker flies are parasitic flies whose females lay eggs on wounds of any warm-blooded animal. After eggs hatch, hundreds of bicheira larvae use their sharp mouths to pierce living flesh, eventually killing the host if they are not treated.
The bicheira can be devastating to cattle and wildlife and rarely infests human beings, although infestation in an animal or a person may be fatal.
