2026-06-11T10:03:47.95Z / 路透社
华盛顿6月11日电（路透社）——美国政府正通过多机构协同战略，加快药物审批、加速拨款，以击退新大陆螺旋锥蝇——这种寄生虫正威胁美国本就处境艰难的牛群。不过，人员裁减和关键防控工具短缺，仍给应对工作带来了隐忧。
这场虫害的大规模暴发，可能给早已饱受长期干旱困扰的肉牛产业带来数十亿美元损失。目前牛肉价格接近历史高位，随着11月中期选举临近，特朗普总统所在的共和党正竭力维持其在国会的微弱多数优势，高物价也加剧了美国民众的经济焦虑。
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据美国农业部声明及路透社采访，自去年年初起，该部门便与动物保健企业、州畜牧官员、农场团体及其他联邦机构合作，为螺旋锥蝇可能入侵美国做好准备。
然而，因数百名员工参与了政府早期缩减联邦 workforce 计划提供的经济激励项目，农业部目前的动物健康专家数量较特朗普第二任期伊始减少了25%。
此次备战工作包括加快农场动物和宠物用螺旋锥蝇治疗药物的审批流程、在德克萨斯州建立治疗药物储备库，并向已确认疫情的德克萨斯州地区增派人员。
“自去年年初起，我们就已在为螺旋锥蝇在美国卷土重来做准备，”农业部长布鲁克·罗林斯周一在德克萨斯州克尔维尔的新闻发布会上表示。她还透露，农业部将提前发放1亿美元资金，用于研发对抗螺旋锥蝇的新技术。
罗林斯周三在参议院农业委员会听证会上称，农业部已有100多名全职人员投入螺旋锥蝇防控工作。截至目前，农业部已在德克萨斯州和新墨西哥州确认6例螺旋锥蝇疫情，涉及4头奶牛、1只山羊和1只狗。
部分德克萨斯州牧场主对农业部目前的应对措施提出批评。62岁的苏珊·斯托里是拉索尔县的牧场主，她表示农业部的公开沟通不足以缓解她对虫害扩散的担忧。
“我们只是希望看到更多实际行动，”她说。
加速审批治疗药物
作为联邦备战工作的一部分，美国食品药品监督管理局自去年9月以来，已为螺旋锥蝇治疗药物签发了12项紧急使用授权或有条件批准。这两类审批均允许企业在提供安全性和部分有效性证据后即可投入使用，无需经过FDA完整的审评流程。
动物保健公司Elanco首席执行官杰夫·西蒙斯表示，此次快速审批是由FDA、农业部及有权监管部分可用螺旋锥蝇杀虫剂的美国环境保护署协同推进的。
西蒙斯称，Elanco深度参与了此次备战工作，该公司两款获快速审批的药物已被运往农业部在德克萨斯州的储备库。
“我们早有准备，也一直在期待——问题不在于是否会暴发，而在于何时暴发，”西蒙斯说。
生物制药公司默克的动物保健部门也在过去一年中与农业部及德克萨斯州动物卫生官员密切合作，为可能出现的螺旋锥蝇疫情做准备。该部门牲畜技术服务执行总监贾斯汀·韦尔什表示，其公司外用螺旋锥蝇治疗药物已于去年12月获得FDA有条件批准。
韦尔什称，农业部的应对措施积极主动，但他预计会有更多病例出现。
“可以肯定的是，疫情会继续扩散，但希望扩散速度会非常缓慢，”韦尔什说。
苍蝇储备不足，员工人数缩减
美国农业部正面临对抗螺旋锥蝇的关键工具短缺问题——用于与雌蝇交配以终止繁殖的无菌雄蝇。农业部正在德克萨斯州建设一座生产更多无菌蝇的设施，但预计要到2027年下半年才能投入使用。
目前，农业部正部署巴拿马工厂每周生产的1亿只无菌蝇，但官员表示，要遏制虫害，还需要数亿只更多的无菌蝇。
“我们没有足够的（苍蝇）来完成全面防控，但足以应对……德克萨斯州境内的疫情发展，”农业部负责研究的副部长斯科特·哈钦斯在周一的新闻发布会上表示。
自特朗普第二任期伊始，农业部负责动物健康应急响应的员工人数也出现大幅下滑。
根据农业部监察长办公室的数据，2025年1月至6月间，农业部动植物卫生检验局有超过2100名员工离职，离职率约为25%。
11名民主党参议员在周二致罗林斯及其副部长斯蒂芬·瓦登的信中表示，动植物卫生检验局及其他农业部机构的人员裁减可能会阻碍该部门应对螺旋锥蝇疫情。
“新大陆螺旋锥蝇在美国重现，凸显了全面充实农业部各服务部门人手的迫切需求，这些部门是农业安全疾病暴发检测和快速应对危险威胁的前线力量，”来自俄勒冈州的参议员杰夫·默克利及其他10名议员在信中说道。
罗林斯在参议院农业委员会听证会上表示，员工缩减并未影响农业部应对螺旋锥蝇疫情的工作。
美国兽医协会主席、兽医迈克尔·贝利表示，像动植物卫生检验局雇佣的兽医是螺旋锥蝇防控工作的关键，因为他们需要与地方、州和联邦官员合作，对疑似病例进行观察、提供建议并指导应对工作。
“公共卫生领域原本就没有足够的兽医，任何导致兽医离开政府部门的因素，都会产生负面影响，”贝利说。
本报华盛顿记者莉亚·道格拉斯报道；德克萨斯州拉索尔市记者希瑟·施利茨补充报道；艾米丽·施马尔与奥罗拉·埃利斯编辑
US screwworm cases test months of federal preparation
2026-06-11T10:03:47.95Z / Reuters
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. government is fast-tracking drugs and accelerating grant funding in its multi-agency strategy to beat back the New World screwworm, a parasite that threatens the nation’s beleaguered cattle herd, even as staffing cuts and a shortage of a key prevention tool have raised concerns about the response.
A widespread outbreak of the pest could pose a multi-billion-dollar threat to the beef industry, already plagued by longstanding drought. Beef prices are near record highs, contributing to Americans’ economic anxiety as the November midterms approach, where President Donald Trump’s Republican party will fight to maintain its slim control of Congress.
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The USDA has been working since early last year with animal health companies, state livestock officials, farm groups and other federal agencies to prepare for the potential incursion of screwworm into the U.S., according to agency statements and Reuters interviews.
Yet the agency is operating with 25% fewer animal health experts than it had at the start of Trump’s second term, after hundreds took a financial incentive program offered as part of the administration’s earlier effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce.
That preparation has included fast-tracking screwworm treatments for farm animals and pets, building a stockpile of those treatments in Texas and surging personnel to areas of Texas where cases have been confirmed.
“We have been prepared and preparing since early last year for the re-emergence in America,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Monday at a press conference in Kerrville, Texas, where she also said the USDA will distribute $100 million in funding earlier than expected for new technologies to combat screwworm.
The agency has more than 100 staff working full-time on screwworm, Rollins told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday. So far, the USDA has confirmed six screwworm cases in Texas and New Mexico, affecting four cows, a goat and a dog.
Some Texas ranchers are critical of the USDA’s response so far. Susan Storey, 62, a rancher in La Salle County, said the agency’s public communications were insufficient to soothe her concerns about the spread of the pest.
“We just want more action,” she said.
TREATMENTS FAST-TRACKED
As part of the federal preparation, the Food and Drug Administration has issued 12 emergency use authorizations or conditional approvals for screwworm treatments since last September. Both categories allow for the treatments to be used once companies have provided safety and some efficacy evidence, but without going through the FDA’s full review process.
That fast-tracking was coordinated among the FDA, the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, which has authority over some pesticides that could be used against screwworm, said Jeff Simmons, CEO of the animal health company Elanco.
Elanco has been closely involved in the preparations and two of the company’s fast-tracked drugs are being sent to a USDA stockpile in Texas, Simmons said.
“It is something that we were preparing for, expecting — it was probably a matter of if, not when,” Simmons said.
The animal health arm of biopharmaceutical company Merck has also worked closely with the USDA and Texas animal health officials over the past year to prepare for potential screwworm cases, and received conditional approval from the FDA for its topical screwworm treatment in December, said Justin Welsh, executive director of livestock technical services.
Welsh said the USDA response has been proactive, but that he expects to see more cases emerge.
“It’s safe to say we’ll see it continue to spread, but hopefully very slowly,” Welsh said.
SHORT ON FLIES, FEWER STAFF
The USDA is facing a shortage of one of its key tools against screwworm flies — sterile male flies that breed with females, halting reproduction. The USDA is building a facility to produce more sterile flies in Texas, but it is not expected to open until late 2027.
The USDA is deploying 100 million sterile flies produced weekly at a plant in Panama, though officials have said many millions more are needed to beat back the pest.
“We don’t have enough (flies) to do the complete push, but we do have enough to manage … the growth of the development of it in Texas,” said the USDA’s undersecretary for research, Scott Hutchins, at the Monday press conference.
The agency has also seen a significant drop in animal health response staff since the start of Trump’s second term.
According to the USDA’s Office of Inspector General, more than 2,100 staff left the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service between January and June 2025, about 25% attrition.
A group of Democratic senators wrote in a Tuesday letter to Rollins and her deputy secretary, Stephen Vaden, that staff reductions at APHIS and other USDA agencies could hamper the agency’s screwworm response.
“The reemergence of the New World screwworm in the U.S. highlights the urgent need to fully staff the USDA’s Services, which are on the frontlines of disease outbreak detection and rapid response to dangerous threats to agricultural security,” said the letter from Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and 10 others.
Rollins told the Senate Agriculture Committee that the reduced staff has not affected the agency’s screwworm response.
Veterinarians like those employed by APHIS are key to the screwworm response because they work with local, state and federal officials to observe and advise on suspected cases and guide the response, said Michael Bailey, a veterinarian and president of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“We don’t have enough veterinarians in those public health areas to begin with, and anything that leads to them leaving the government, any area of government, is going to have a negative impact,” Bailey said.
Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; additional reporting by Heather Schlitz in La Salle, Texas; Editing by Emily Schmall and Aurora Ellis
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