Medfly Quarantine Lifted

Proclaiming victory in their struggle to eradicate the latest infestation of the Mediterranean fruit fly, agricultural officials announced today that they are lifting a produce quarantine that had covered 110 square miles of southeastern Los Angeles County.

The pest, first discovered in East Los Angeles last summer, succumbed to two aerial applications of malathion bait and the release of more than 700 million sterile Medflies at an estimated cost of $2 million, county Agricultural Commissioner Paul B. Engler said. A second quarantine remains in effect in 170 square miles of western Los Angeles County, where peach and melon fruit flies have been discovered.