There is no scientific evidence that the tea can treat COVID, but the indigenous Kayapo communities in Brazil use it to prevent the worst effects of the virus.
By Lucas Landau
PARA STATE, Brazil, January 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, far from the laboratories of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, the indigenous people of Para, Kayapó, use a drink made from vines fend off the worst effects of COVID-19.
As illegal loggers and miners’ intruders in the Amazon increased during the pandemic, potentially exposing forest trunks to the virus, the Kayapó says their natural treatment helps keep them safe.
The skin of the vine – the name of which the community keeps secret – is boiled and drunk in five days to a tea that is drunk three times a day, explains Po Yre, a 23-year-old member of the Kayapó community. of the town of Pykany.
“The medicine is very strong. If you take it, you become weak, sometimes with red eyes and headaches. But the next day it works. You wake up well,” said Po Yre, who took the drug after testing. positive for COVID-19 in July.
Although there is no scientific evidence that the tea can fight the virus, Kayapó leaders said all members of the community should drink it as a form of prevention against COVID, which according to official figures has killed nearly 200,000 Brazilians.
Villagers say this is the best way to prevent 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 is endangering indigenous communities with limited or no access to health care in the Amazon and whose common way of life makes social distance difficult.
Amazon communities were hit particularly hard in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil last year.
“The (relevant) agencies did not act in time to protect us, and we leave the question of whether they are really there for our indigenous people,” said O-é Kaiapó Paiakan, daughter of the iconic leader of Kayapó, Paulinho Paiakan , one of the pioneers of the indigenous movement of Brazil, who died in June of COVID-19.
The government’s indigenous affairs agency, Funai, has addressed all questions to the Ministry of Health.
The ministry said in an email statement that there are more than 400 health workers monitoring and treating Para’s Kayapo community, and that the government is sending essential supplies – such as masks and hand sanitizer to alcohol – to the villages.
“The professionals of the district hold an ongoing dialogue (s) home visits … with the leaders, health advisers and the general population of the villages, to address the preventive and protective care of COVID-19,” according to the statement.
When the Kayapó become ill, they usually start with traditional remedies and only switch to the use of conventional medicine, if necessary, said dr. Douglas Rodrigues, a native health specialist at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, said.
The Kayapó finds that the grape tea alleviates the symptoms of COVID-19, ‘whether it is because the tea has active ingredients or that it contains ingredients that strengthen and hydrate’, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A PERFECT STORM ‘
According to the Instituto Socioambiental, an organization that proposes solutions to environmental and social issues in Brazil, there are an estimated 12,000 Kayapó in the states of Pará and Mato Grosso.
According to SESAI, the government’s indigenous health service, there have been fewer than 20 deaths due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
According to indigenous advocates, this is likely to be an underestimation, but it is still below the 2.5% death rate among non-indigenous Brazilians, according to statistics from the National Council of Health Secretaries.
Indigenous rights advocates say the invasion of the Amazon forests by loggers, miners and farmers increases the risk that villagers will catch the coronavirus from outside.
Rodrigo Balbueno, a biologist and consultant at the Kabu Institute, which represents the Kayapó communities from the indigenous countries of Bau and Menkragnoti in the state of Para, says there has been a surge in the number of raids during the pandemic.
Comparing satellite images of the area from August 2020 to October 2020, Balbueno said it was possible to see new roads being built and more areas removed from trees – all indicating increasing illegal logging and gold mining.
Environmental lawyers say protesters were encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s plans to open the Amazon to commercial mining and agriculture, which he said will lift indigenous peoples out of poverty.
At the same time, when Funai banned outsiders from entering indigenous lands at the start of the pandemic, the order also stopped inspections that were supposed to stop the illegal activities in the rainforest, Balbueno explained.
“This weakening of inspections and the sense of freedom (granted by Bolsonaro) was the perfect storm for everything we see now,” he said.
Scientists say the fight against rising deforestation rates in the Amazon rainforest – an important store of planetary warming carbon that spans nine South American countries – is of cardinal importance in the fight against climate change.
LOSS OF HISTORY AND TRADITIONS
Even as villagers avoid cities and regularly drink doses of vine, Chief Abiri Kayapó of the town of Pykatoti is still worried that the virus could take hold.
‘There was no serious matter here in town. All were treated with the medicine from the forest. But I’m worried about the invasions, ‘he said, walking on a trail through the woods to indicate medicinal plants.
The leaders of Kayapó have banned anyone in the community from disclosing the name of the plant species used in the tea treatment to prevent their forests from being further stripped of resources, Abiri said.
The residents say the secret is essential to ensure that the pandemic no longer claims the people who own the history and traditions of the community.
“COVID-19 killed women, the elderly and leaders who took with them an entire history of struggle and culture,” said O-é Kaiapó Paiakan, who is still shaken by the loss of her father.
“Elders are of great importance to the stability of our culture. They maintain our way of life and pass on their stories to younger generations to pass on.”
Read more:
Indigenous community in Brazil bans miners to reduce coronavirus risk
COVID-19 fears grow for isolated indigenous people in the Amazon in Brazil
To ward off the pandemic, indigenous tribes in India are finding remedies in forests
Reporting by Lucas Landau; Edited by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering. Thanks to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charity arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers the lives of people around the world who are struggling to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
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