By Lucas Landau
PARA STATE, Brazil, Jan 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, far from the laboratories of the world’s major pharmaceutical companies, the Kayapó indigenous people of Para state are using a drink made from vines to help them ward off the worst effects of COVID-19.
As incursions into the Amazon by illegal loggers and miners have increased during the pandemic, potentially exposing forest-dwelling tribes to the virus, the Kayapó say their natural treatment is helping to keep them safe.
The skin of the vine – the name of which the community is keeping secret – is boiled and strained into a tea which is drunk three times a day, for five days, explained Po Yre, a 23-year-old member of the Kayapó community from Pykany village.
“The medicine is very strong. When you take it, you get weak, sometimes with red eyes and a headache. But, the next day, it works. You wake up well,” said Po Yre, who took the remedy after he tested positive for COVID-19 in July.
While there is no scientific evidence that the tea can combat the virus, Kayapó leaders have said all community members should drink it as a form of prevention against COVID, which has killed nearly 200,000 Brazilians, according to official figures.
Villagers say it is the best way to keep the pandemic from wiping out indigenous communities, which they say have had limited support from the federal government.
Health experts warn that the coronavirus pandemic endangers indigenous communities with limited or no access to healthcare in the Amazon and whose communal living makes social distancing difficult.
Amazon communities were particularly hard hit in the early stages of Brazil’s coronavirus pandemic last year.
“The (relevant) agencies did not act in a timely manner to protect us, leaving us to question if they are really there for us indigenous people,” said O-é Kaiapó Paiakan, the daughter of iconic Kayapó leader Paulinho Paiakan, one of the pioneers of Brazil’s indigenous movement, who died from COVID-19 in June.
The government’s indigenous affairs agency, Funai, directed all questions to the Ministry of Health.
The ministry said in an emailed statement that there are more than 400 health workers monitoring and treating Para’s Kayapo community and the government has been sending essential supplies – such as masks and hand-sanitizing alcohol – to the villages.
“The district’s professionals maintain a constant dialogue (and) make home visits … with the leaders, health counselors and the general population of the villages, addressing the preventive and protective care of COVID-19,” according to the statement.
When the Kayapó get sick, they usually start with traditional remedies and only move on to using conventional medicine if necessary, said Dr. Douglas Rodrigues, a specialist in indigenous health at the Federal University of Sao Paulo.
The Kayapó find that the vine tea eases the symptoms of COVID-19, “whether because the teas have active ingredients or they have components that strengthen and hydrate,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
