Indigenous leaders warn that missionaries are turning Amazon villages against vaccines

(This February 11 story corrects Purus in the Amazon tributary, not in Xingú)

BRAZIL (Reuters) – Medical teams working to immunize Brazil’s remote indigenous villages from coronavirus have met fierce resistance in some communities where evangelical missionaries raise fears about the vaccine, tribal leaders and lawyers say.

In the São Francisco Reservation in the state of Amazonas, Jamamadi villagers sent health workers with bundles of bows and arrows when they were visited by helicopter this month, said Claudemir da Silva, an Apurina leader representing indigenous communities on the river. Purus, a tributary of the Amazon.

“It doesn’t happen in all villages, only in those that have missionaries or evangelical chapels where pastors convince people not to get the vaccine, that they will turn into an alligator and other crazy ideas,” he said by phone.

This added to fears that COVID-19 could scream among the more than 800,000 indigenous people in Brazil, whose communal life and often poor health care make it a priority in the national immunization program.

Tribal leaders blame Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his staunch supporters of the evangelical community for causing skepticism about coronavirus vaccines, despite the number of deaths nationwide remaining in the United States. Unite.

“Religious fundamentalists and evangelical missionaries preach against the vaccine,” said Dinamam Tuxá, a leader of APIB, Brazil’s largest indigenous organization.

The Brazilian Association of Anthropologists on Tuesday denounced in a statement unspecified religious groups for spreading false conspiracy theories to “sabotage” indigenous vaccination.

Many pastors of urban evangelical mega-churches in Brazil are urging followers to get vaccinated, but say missionaries in remote territories have not received the message.

“Unfortunately, some pastors who lack wisdom spread the misinformation of our native brothers,” said Pastor Mario Jorge Conceição of the traditional Church of the Assumption in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas.

The government’s indigenous health agency, Sesai, told Reuters in a statement that it was working to raise awareness of the importance of coronavirus immunization.

Bolsonaro reduced the severity of the virus and refused to vaccinate himself. He followed a special derision on the most available photos in the country, taken by Sinovac Biotech in China, citing doubts about its “origins”.

At a December event, the president ridiculed vaccine maker Pfizer because he said the company refused to take responsibility for the side effects in talks with his government.

“If you take the vaccine and turn it into an alligator, that’s your problem. If you turn into Superman or women grow beards, I have nothing to do with it, “Bolsonaro said sarcastically.

Pfizer said it proposed to the Brazilian government standard contractual guarantees that other countries had accepted before using the vaccine.

Access to social media even in the far corners of Brazil has sparked false rumors about coronavirus vaccines.

For example, 56-year-old tribal chief Fernando Katukina of the Nôke Kôi people near the Peruvian border died on February 1 of a heart attack related to diabetes and congestive heart failure. It quickly spread on social media and radio that the COVID-19 vaccine he received in January caused his death.

The Butantan biomedical center, which produces and distributes the Sinovac vaccine, rushed to convince the natives that this was not the case.

“Social media messages that Fernando Katukina died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine are false news,” Butantan wrote in a tweet.

COVID-19 killed at least 957 indigenous people, according to APIB, from about 48,071 confirmed infections in half of Brazil’s 300 native ethnic groups. The numbers could be much higher, as the Sesai health agency only monitors indigenous people living on reservations.