Health workers take vaccines to indigenous peoples on canoes

Brazil’s indigenous populations are among the priority groups to receive Covid-19 vaccinations, but the difficulty in accessing native communities has been a major obstacle for public health teams.

While several urban municipalities have adopted a drive-thru system to administer vaccines and avoid the risk of queues, cars and roads are few and far between in the Amazon basin. There, rivers are the main routes of transport, and one health team in the western Amazon has set up a “sail-thru” vaccination routine allowing local indigenous people to receive inoculation on their canoes, as shown in one photo that went viral on social media.

The picture was posted by Adriana Zurra, a nurse providing healthcare to indigenous communities in the Amazon. “Behind that photo is an entire team which makes the utmost effort to bring healthcare to indigenous populations,” she wrote.

Over 85,700 people in the state of Amazonas — the largest in the Amazon region — have received their first shot of a coronavirus vaccine.

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