Acutely vulnerable population at risk as wildcat miners in Amazon reserve suspected as source of infection that killed 15-year-old.
A Yanomami teenager has reportedly died after contracting Covid-19, further fuelling fears over the disease’s potential to decimate indigenous communities in the Amazon.
The victim – who health authorities named as 15-year-old Alvanei Xirixana – died on Thursday night after spending almost a week in intensive care in Boa Vista, a Brazilian city near the Yanomami’s Portugal-sized reserve.
The Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported that Xirixana was from Rehebe, a village along the Uraricoera River which wildcat goldminers use to illegally access the mineral-rich territory.
The website Amazônia Real said the village’s 70 or so members had been isolated, as well as the victim’s parents, five health workers and a local pilot…
To read the entire article from The Guardian, click https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/first-yanomami-covid-19-death-brazl-indigenous
