[2] Although typically a far greater issue for animals, myiasis is also a relatively frequent disease for humans in rural tropical regions where myiatic flies thrive, and often may require medical attention to surgically remove the parasites.

[3] There can also be accidental myiasis that Eristalis tenax can cause in humans via water containing the larvae or in contaminated uncooked food.

Predisposing factors include poor socioeconomic conditions, extremes of age, neglect, mental disability, psychiatric illness, alcoholism, diabetes, and vascular occlusive disease.

Once the skin has been breached, the larvae then tunnel through the sores into the host's subcutaneous tissue, causing deep and irritating lesions highly subject to infection.

[citation needed] The cheese fly (Piophila casei) sometimes causes myiasis through intentional consumption of its maggots (which are contained in the traditional Sardinian delicacy casu marzu).

For example, feeding on dead or necrotic tissue is not generally a problem except when larvae such as those of flies in the family Piophilidae attack stored food such as cheese or preserved meats; such activity suggests saprophagy rather than parasitism; it even may be medically beneficial in maggot debridement therapy (MDT).

Depending on the species present in the gut, pseudomyiasis may cause significant medical symptoms, but it is likely that most cases pass unnoticed.

[citation needed] The first control method is preventive and aims to eradicate the adult flies before they can cause any damage and is called.

[citation needed] The principal control method of adult populations of myiasis-inducing flies involves insecticide applications in the environment where the target livestock is kept.

[27] To prevent myiasis in humans, there is a need for general improvement of sanitation, personal hygiene, and extermination of the flies by insecticides.

[citation needed] Livestock may be treated prophylactically with slow-release boluses containing ivermectin, which can provide long-term protection against the development of the larvae.

Sheep also may be dipped, a process that involves drenching the animals in persistent insecticide to poison the larvae before they develop into a problem.

Blowfly strike, and other flystrike, occurs worldwide but is most common in regions where hot and wet conditions are sustained, such as Sub-Saharan Africa,[28] Southeast Asia,[29] Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.

[31] As mitigation, Australian sheep farmers may engage in mulesing, a procedure designed to remove strips of wool-producing skin that are the most common targets for flies.

[31] However, both mulesing and tail-docking have received criticism from animal welfare groups, who say the mitigative procedures are excessive and can have other negative effects.

[32] In addition to blowfly strike in sheep, myiasis from screwworm flies (Cochliomyia hominivorax in particular) regularly cause upwards of US$100 million in annual damages to domestic cows and goats.

Hope described several cases of myiasis from Jamaica caused by unknown larvae, one of which resulted in death.

[citation needed] Fly larvae that feed on dead tissue can clean wounds and may reduce bacterial activity and the chance of a secondary infection.

In 1990, California internist Ronald Sherman began treating patients with maggots produced at his lab at the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

[37] The American Medical Association and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently clarified the reimbursement guidelines to the wound care community for medicinal maggots, and this therapy may soon be covered by insurance.

In the American Civil War, army surgeons treated wounds by allowing blowfly maggots to clean away the decayed tissue.

The idea was based on an experience in World War I in which two soldiers presented to him with broken femurs after having lain on the ground for seven days without food.