Brazil’s vaccine drive faces challenges in the vast and remote communities of indigenous peoples

Cavalcante, Brazil (AP) — Due to Brazil’s vast scale and inadequate infrastructure, delivering the coronavirus vaccine to distant communities of indigenous and slave offspring is a particularly difficult endeavor.

Nurse Rosemeire Bezerra has many years of experience inoculating slave offspring (known as “Quironbora”) in the municipality of Cavalcante, about 180 miles from the Brazilian capital Brasilia. Her biggest challenge in her current vaccination drive is to keep her vaccine dose below 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) in isolated tropics. It’s especially hot and humid in the Valley of Souls (Vão de Almas in Portuguese) where she went.

On Monday, Bezerra protected the plastic foam coolers with cardboard shells and filled them with ice. She intended to vaccinate 190 families within four days before the ice melted. She set out with her team and three others, including an experienced driver familiar with remote areas.

The House of the Valley of the Souls is far away, and the chewed dirt roads are a shocking journey that complicates balancing the cooler on the lap. Many crossings are also testing four-wheel drive vehicles.

Due to the very poor access, Bezela and her staff often vaccinate people they meet on the roadside or who tend to harvest crops in the fields, as they may not have another opportunity. .. Some areas can only be reached on foot and you will need to bring in food and water.

The vaccination team set up a store in the school and set up a tent in the classroom. Bezela slept with the lantern and cooler aside.

“I woke up three times each night to see if the temperature was right,” she said. “If they are lost, it’s a huge responsibility. I treated those vaccines like a daughter.”

Brazil is in the midst of an astonishing surge in COVID-19 cases, killing about 3,000 people per day for the first time since the pandemic began.Public health experts say that limiting activity and social distance can help relieve pressure on hospital overloaded intensive care units, but the only long-term solution is 210 million, which is larger than the continental United States. Says it is a mass vaccination in a person’s country

Nearly 6% of Brazilians have received at least one shot, according to Our World in Data, a collaboration between Oxford University researchers and the nonprofit Global Change Data Lab. Only 1.5% are taking 2 doses.

There are formidable logistics to reach the indigenous communities, many of which are only accessible by boat and difficult to overcome vaccine questions.

Members of the Amazonas remote ballet group received a vaccine jab on Wednesday after healthcare workers traveled from the capital city of Manaus up the Queiras River to New Hope Village (Nova Esperanza) for more than two hours. Some of the villagers first rejected the shot.

This was not the only time Januario Carneiro, coordinator of the Indigenous Medical Unit in the Manaus region, faced skepticism and distrust.

Carneiro has spent hours convincing the indigenous people that the vaccine is safe, and he says he was successful. So far, he said, 71% of the approximately 15,000 indigenous peoples in the Manaus region received the first shot and 52% received the second jab this week.

There are 195 villagers living in New Hope, but Wednesday’s trip to Carneiro was to vaccinate only 19 who missed on their previous outings. It helps explain why priority immunization of indigenous peoples and Kirombora is a matter of efficiency.

“Imagine you need to go to these isolated areas just for people over the age of 70, then pay all the fuel for the boat just for the small groups and come back later. Jacqueline Sachette, a professor of nursing at Amazonas State University, said in a video posted by the state-owned Fiocrus Institute: “It’s not just about human rights.”

New Hope chief Jose Plancasio said the entire village was infected with the coronavirus after people who traveled to Manaus in search of food brought the coronavirus home.

Manaus suffered a catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 cases in January, caused by a more contagious strain of the virus. Hospitals have been deficient in oxygen for weeks, and doctors have had to choose which intensive care unit to wear a ventilator.

Although the number of cases and deaths has declined in the state since then, vaccination still has a way to go. New Hope is approaching exemption as part of it. After Reinaldo da Cruza Santos, 37, received the shot, he held up his vaccine card and displayed a sticker proving that he had taken both shots.

“My people are now very happy with the vaccine,” said Prancácio. “Many people will die until the vaccine comes out. But today, thank God. We are 100% happy.”

In Cavalcante, Quilombo’s Manoel Pereira and his wife Leona stood beside the fence on the cassava farm and received their first shot. Wearing a disposable gown, Bezela calmly delivered the dose to Pereira. Pereira seemed to want to return to his labor.

“It’s a very poor community and there are places that can only be reached by special pickup trucks,” Bezela said. “Our team spared no effort. We needed to give them some hope.”