Indigenous leaders warn of missionaries diverting Amazonian villages from vaccines

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Medical teams working to immunize remote indigenous villages in Brazil against the coronavirus have encountered fierce resistance in some communities where evangelical missionaries are fueling fears of the vaccine, tribal leaders and advocates say.

On the São Francisco reserve in Amazonas state, villagers in Jamamadi sent health workers to pack with bows and arrows during their helicopter tour this month, said Claudemir da Silva, a leader Apurinã representing indigenous communities on the Purus River, a tributary of the Xingú. .

“This does not happen in all the villages, just in those that have missionaries or evangelical chapels where pastors convince people not to get the vaccine, that they will turn into alligators and other crazy ideas,” he said over the phone.

This has added to fears that COVID-19 could roar through Brazil’s more than 800,000 indigenous people, whose community life and often precarious health care make it a priority in the national immunization program.

Tribal leaders accuse Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and some of his staunch supporters in the evangelical community of stoking skepticism about coronavirus vaccines, despite a nationwide death toll trailing only the States- United.

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

The Association of Brazilian Anthropologists on Tuesday denounced religious groups not specified in a statement for spreading false conspiracy theories to “sabotage” the vaccination of indigenous populations.

Many pastors in Brazil’s urban evangelical mega-churches are urging their congregants to get vaccinated, but they say missionaries in outlying areas have failed to get the message.

“Unfortunately, some pastors who lack wisdom are spreading misinformation to our indigenous brethren,” said Pastor Mario Jorge Conceição of the Traditional Church of the Assembly of God in Manaus, the state capital of Amazonas.

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

Bolsonaro downplayed the severity of the virus and refused to be vaccinated himself. He derided the country’s most widely available photo, taken by Sinovac Biotech, citing doubts about its “origins.”

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

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

Pfizer said it offered the Brazilian government standard contractual guarantees that other countries agreed to before using its vaccine.

Access to social media, even in remote corners of Brazil, has fueled false rumors about coronavirus vaccines.

For example, tribal chief Fernando Katukina, 56, of the Nôke Kôi people near the border with Peru, died on February 1 of cardiac arrest linked to diabetes and congestive heart failure. Word quickly spread on social media and on the radio that the COVID-19 vaccine he received in January caused his death.

The Butantan Biomedical Center, which produces and distributes the Sinovac vaccine, has worked to convince indigenous people that this is not the case.

“The social media messages that Fernando Katukina died after taking a COVID-19 vaccine are fake news,” Butantan wrote in a tweet.

COVID-19 has killed at least 957 indigenous peoples, according to APIB, out of some 48,071 confirmed infections among half of Brazil’s 300 indigenous ethnic groups. The numbers could be much higher, as the Sesai Health Agency only monitors indigenous populations living on reserves.