Governor Greg Abbott and state health officials say they are moving swiftly to address the first case of flesh-eating screwworm found in the U.S. in Texas.

Florida has enacted emergency rules to block the flesh-eating screwworm from entering the state after the parasite was detected in Texas.

The quiet Texas cattle town ​of La Pryor has become ground zero in the fight against screwworm after the first U.S. case ‌in decades was detected there, prompting a livestock quarantine and putting ranchers and pet owners on edge.

Gov. Greg Abbott and other state officials provided an update Friday afternoon on the New World screwworm case in Texas. The New World screwworm is a parasitic fly larva that infests the tissue of

After a screwworm infestation was confirmed in a South Texas calf, officials launched an aggressive effort to prevent the parasite from spreading in the nation’s largest cattle-producing state.

By Tom Polansek and Cassandra Garrison LUBBOCK, Texas/SALTILLO, Mexico, June 6 (Reuters) - Lubbock Feeders has been fattening cattle in West Texas since Dwight Eisenhower was U.S. president. Now, row upon row of pens sit empty.

The flies pose a threat the state’s $17 billion cattle industry and can infest any warm-blooded animals, including wildlife and pets.

The New World screwworm fly has reached south Texas, the US Department of Agriculture confirmed Wednesday, the first time in decades that the parasite with flesh-eating larvae has threatened the nation’s cattle industry and only the third time it’s appeared in the United States in that time.