Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990                   TAG: 9003270352
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. PLANS TO HELP LIBYA FIGHT DEADLY SCREWWORM

Researchers hope to wipe out the screwworm by releasing sterilized male Mexican screwworm flies, which will mate with females and prevent them from laying eggs that will hatch.

The screwworm normally is transmitted from animal to animal, but in cultures where people live close to their livestock, the flies lay eggs in people's noses, and the worms eat their hosts' brains.

The U.S. Agency for International Development is sponsoring the project, and the actual aerial release of the sterile flies will be from planes flown under international auspices.

The flies found their way to Libya in mid-1988 apparently through a shipment from South America. Previously, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans had protected the rest of the world.

Now there is no large body of water to prevent them from spreading to other continents.

A research laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in North Dakota determined that the Mexican and Libyan species are compatible. President Bush recently signed a law that permits the sterile Mexican flies to be used outside the Western Hemisphere.

Andrew Natsios, director of foreign disaster assistance for the Agency for International Development, told reporters on Monday that the flies are especially dangerous in countries where people live close to their farm animals.

"In many developing countries the animals sleep in close proximity to people and what happens at night when people are sleeping is that the flies get into the nasal cavity of people and lay their eggs . . . and the eggs hatch," he said.

"People don't know it's there until it's well along in the process. They have to have surgery to have the worms removed. What happens is that if it's left untended the screwworm eats through the nose into the brain and the person dies."

The scientific name for the fly is cochliomyia hominivorax, the man-eating spiral midge.

The screw-shaped larvae burrow deep into flesh, bone and tissues. Official reports from Libya say 30 people have been infected. Unofficial estimates go as high as 300.

Wildlife is also affected, including endangered species, according to the Agency for International Development.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 70 million head of cattle are in danger in North Africa alone and the cost there could reach $250 million a year. The organization will run the program.

"My office tries to prevent disasters before they happen," Natsios said. "I do not look forward to running famine programs in countries which have been attacked by the screwworm fly."

He called the screwworm more dangerous than the locust, because the threat is constant. Locusts come in cycles and the threat periodically dies away.

Natsios said the program will cost about $80 million, some of which will be contributed by other countries. It could put an end to the threat before it gets out of Libya, but if it spread much further all of Africa, the Middle East, parts of Asia and southern Europe could suffer, the Agency for International Development said.