Coronavirus hits remote Amazon tribe in Brazil killing 15-year-old boy
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A 15-year-old member of a remote Amazon tribe in Brazil has died after contracting coronavirus.
Alvanei Xirixan died in intensive care in the main hospital of Boa Vista, capital of Roraima state, where he was being treated for COVID-19, according to local indigenous health service Dsei.
The boy, a member of the Yanomami tribe, is the third indigenous person to die in the coronavirus epidemic, the Reuters news agency reports, although the first from such a remote area.
Tribespeople with symptoms of the virus living in the teenager’s village of Rehebe are being isolated and test kits are being sent to the area.
He had been in intensive care since 3 April, Brazil’s health ministry said.
Coronavirus could have a devastating impact on Brazil’s 850,000 indigenous people, who are vulnerable to external diseases and do not have quick access to proper medical care, health experts and anthropologists have warned.
Brazil’s Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said the government plans to build a field hospital for tribes that are vulnerable to contagion.
More than 1,000 people have died from coronavirus in Brazil, with close to 20,000 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the outbreak.
However, President Jair Bolsonaro has snubbed the advice of health experts, comparing the virus to a “little flu” and publicly attacking state governors who have introduced quarantine measures.
