COVID-19 May Completely Wipe Out Some Amazon Tribes

Adalton Akay, one of the Munduruku indigenous tribe leaders, stands on the banks of the Tapajos River

COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, could wipe out entire tribes in the Amazon region, The Daily Beast reports. The tribespeoples’ immune systems, as well as area governments’ responses to the pandemic, have left the indigenous populations especially vulnerable.

For millennia, tribes have occupied the Amazon basin, steadfastly avoiding contact with outsiders. That lack of exposure to outsiders, and the pathogens they carry, has left their immune systems unable to cope with many illnesses that bedevil the rest of the world. And in the case of a disease like COVID-19, which is survivable by most of the population but lethal in people with compromised immune systems, the illness could be a death sentence for entire communities.

Julio López, president of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon [OPIAC], said that some tribes in the region are at risk of being exterminated by the disease.

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