Thank you so much for the video!
For the first time in more than six decades, a human in the United States has been diagnosed with a flesh-eating parasite known as the New World screwworm. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this marks the first confirmed human case since the parasite was declared eradicated in the country over 60 years ago.
The patient, a resident of Maryland, had recently returned from traveling in El Salvador. Shortly afterward, doctors discovered something alarming. Images of the larvae were analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which confirmed on August 4 that the infection was indeed caused by Cochliomyia hominivorax, better known as the New World screwworm.
Officials describe this as the first case of travel-associated screwworm myiasis — a parasitic infestation of fly larvae — identified in the U.S. from an outbreak-affected country. While experts emphasize that the overall risk to the American public remains very low, the diagnosis has raised new questions about the spread of dangerous parasites in a world where international travel and cross-border outbreaks are becoming increasingly common.
In this video, we reveal how the parasite enters the body, the disturbing way it attacks living tissue, and why this rare case has caught the attention of health authorities across the nation.
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