Brazil Spotlight: "Shamans against Covid"

While Brazil's National Vaccination Plan Against Covid-19 (which was initiated in January) had managed to vaccinate just 11 per cent of the country's 211 million people by April 1, 53 per cent of the indigenous adult population, from 6,000 indigenous villages across the country, had already been vaccinated.

A complex logistical operation involving 14,000 health professionals, planes, helicopters, boats and trucks, was set up to immunize indigenous peoples. It was a coordinated effort by the Ministry of Health's Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI), the Ministry of Defense, the Brazilian Air Force, the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) and state and municipal health departments.

Despite its success, the operation had teething problems. APIB, a non-governmental organization (short for “Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil”) filed a Civil Action in the Federal Supreme Court demanding emergency measures to protect not only indigenous people in rural locations but also city dwellers. In March, with the vaccination plan already underway, the Supreme Court accepted the claim, criticized the “disjointed federal government [action]” and ruled that  indigenous people living in cities and territories that are not legally recognized should also be a priority group for immunization.

In practice, urban indigenous populations—whose number is unknown—depend on healthcare provided by the SUS, the Brazilian national health service, which operates in 4,000 cities. During the vaccination rollout, citizens are given their Covid-19 jabs via the SUS in accordance with their age, the eldest being the first. However, indigenous populations encounter more difficulty in accessing SUS healthcare than most Brazilians due to racial prejudice and the precariousness of public health services available locally.

There have been several reports of poor treatment of indigenous people during the vaccination process. In Roraima, according to the newspaper Folha de Boa Vista, 25,000 vaccine doses for the indigenous were reportedly stock-piled by local politicians for distribution in the state capital. In Mato Grosso, according to the newspaper Brasil de Fato, 320 vaccine doses destined for the Xingu Indigenous Territory were allegedly diverted. In Amazonas, the state government asked for federal authorization to use 60,000 vaccines reserved for indigenous people to vaccinate non-indigenous people, claiming that heavy rains made some indigenous communities inaccessible. In Mato Grosso do Sul, a Federal Court had to force SESAI to vaccinate the urban indigenous of the state capital, Campo Grande.

SESAI is obliged to provide primary health care in protected indigenous territories, coordinating more complex disease treatments with states and municipalities. However, the urban vaccine rollout faced the challenge of identifying indigenous people. SESAI Secretary Robson Santos da Silva questioned the practice of “self-declaration”—the method used to recognize urban indigenous populations—during a recent meeting of the Parliamentary Front for the Defense of Indigenous Rights in Brasília. Since anyone can self-identify as indigenous, it could make the vaccination schedule vulnerable to fraud.

According to Silva, “legal action is not debated; it is executed. However, we do not know how to register [the indigenous population]. We need a solution. Do I do DNA testing? Do I do a blood test? Do I compile a genealogical history?” The secretary defends himself and calls the accusation that SESAI did not develop a plan to face the pandemic a “fallacy".

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Military officers from the North Conjunct Command supported vaccination against Covid-19 in the Mukuru indigenous village, located in a remote area within the WAIÃPI Indigenous Land, in Amapá.