Texas A&M AgriLife Center hosts public meeting on New World Screwworm

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- In far east El Paso, Texas A&M University's AgriLife Research Center has been one of the leading facilities across Texas in both research and education of the recent revival of the New World Screwworm parasite, according to the institution.

Now, the remote campus here in the Borderland partnered with the Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas Department of State Health Services, and Texas Parks and Wildlife, holding a public meeting to educate concerned residents about the parasite.

As ABC-7 has previously reported, there have been 49 NWS animal cases, while only two remain active as of Monday. Those cases being in a goat and a sheep in Val Verde County, Texas, according to the USDA.

About 30 people gathered in far east El Paso for the meeting Monday night, in what has been one of many meetings led in recent weeks by Sonja Swiger, an entomologist and extension specialist with Texas A&M's AgriLife center.

"We're well over 400 presentations statewide and impacted almost 200,000 individuals directly," Swiger told ABC-7. "We're working really hard to get the word out. We're doing as much as we can to get people educated."