The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced on Friday that it would temporarily restrict livestock from entering Canada from affected parts of the United States, after screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, was detected in a calf in Texas.

Animals, including horses, that have been in Texas within the past 21 days will not be allowed to cross the Canadian border, the CFIA said in a news release.

The move comes after U.S. officials on Wednesday announced that New World screwworm had been found in Texas — the first such case in the United States since the 1960s.

Endemic to South America and the Caribbean, the flesh-eating larvae of this parasitic fly burrow into skin to feed on living tissue of an animal host, which can — on rare occasions — include humans.

A highly successful eradication program wiped out screwworm from North and Central America by the mid 2000s. But since 2024 an outbreak of the parasite has spread among livestock in Mexico.

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