Swine flu strikes Amazonian Indians

[Treyfish]

Aug 12, 2009 02:00 PM


Swine flu has been reported for the first time in Amazonian Indians, raising fears that the virus will cause more contagion and potential deaths in tribal groups around the world.

Seven members of the Matsigenka tribe in the Peruvian Amazon have tested positive for H1N1, the first example of the virus in Amazonian peoples, according to the human rights group Survival International.

Indigenous communities have little to no immunity to outside pathogens, which is why many Native Americans succumbed to disease when Europeans first arrived on the continent

Indeed, swine flu deaths are already stacking up in tribes around the world. Last month, H1N1 took its first casualty in Australia, a 26-year-old Aboriginal man in Kiwirrkurra, one of the country?s most remote Outback communities, the BBC reported.

Aborigines are being hospitalized at five times the rate of the general population.

In Manitoba, Canada, swine flu has struck First Nations people at a rate seven times that of the general population, and Inuit people have been infected at a rate 70 times greater than the general population, or about 1 in 10. Canada's indigenous people were heavily hit during the 1918 Spanish flu.

Ethan Rubinstein, an infectious disease expert at the University of Manitoba told the Agence France Presse, "I don't expect the death rate [for the H1N1 swine flu] to be even close to 1918, but the spread of the disease may still be like that."
______________:tiphat:___http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=swine-flu-strikes-amazonian-indians-2009-08-12

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[Shiloh]

Re: Swine flu strikes Amazonian Indians

Source: http://momento24.com/en/2009/08/31/swine-flu-indigenous-tribes-get-hit-hard/

General
Swine flu: Indigenous tribes get hit hard
Posted on 31 August 2009 at 13:01

Director of Epidemiology, Regional Health Directorate of Cusco (Peru), Luis Gonzales, reported that they have confirmed 23 cases of H1N1 virus infection in La Convencion province , which include ten Machiguenga natives from the Timp?a community.

?While the sword was an important weapon in the destruction of indigenous political units and the creation of colonial empires, was not the main factor which led to European victory. It was the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, full of germs, viruses and bacteria ??

This is how Noble D. Cook, in his book ?The biological conquest. Diseases in the New World? described the influence of diceases in the war fo rthe new world.

Cook?s thesis is that the epidemics that came with the conquerors were relatively functional to the Spanish imperial enterprise. They helped subdue the indigenous resistance.

In the late nineteenth century, to take courage in the world market quinine and rubber, the interest of the Andean region increased significantly Urubamba. The search for these products resulted in a high rate of mortality among Matsiguenga (so called self) due to the hunting of slaves, forcing many to seek refuge in remote areas.
Many Machiguenga died of malaria and smallpox epidemics that broke out in those years.
Ethnicity Machiguengas

The pandemic threatens indigenous tribes of the Amazonia, like the Machiguengas, already affected by the disease, and can spread to the Ashaninka, Yines, Quechua, Arabela, Awajun, Wampis, Cocama Cocamilla, Shawis, and other groups.

Anthropologist Dr. Glenn Shepard, an expert on indigenous Machiguenga, said that swine flu cases among Machiguengas are particularly worrying, as they are known to have intermittent contact with relatively isolated indigenous groups who live nearby.

Peruvian authorities stated that the infected are Machiguenga Indians ?who travel frequently to Lima and Cusco and have contact with people who work for PlusPetrol.

Dr. Stafford Lightman, Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol, said that ?isolated indigenous tribes have no immunity to infectious diseases circulating in our industrial society and are particularly susceptible to swine flu. This could be devastating, infecting entire communities simultaneously, leaving no one to care for the sick or bring and prepare food. ?

The World health organization is issuing a warning about a severe form of the swine flu that affects the lungs of young and healthy individuals, causing respiratory failure. The organization is cautioning hospitals to be prepared for an onslaught of patients requiring specialized intensive care treatment.

Doctors in countries in the southern hemisphere, which have been experiencing a winter outbreak of the swine flu in epidemic proportions, report of young and healthy individuals requiring hospital stays, after the swine flu goes straight to their lungs. About 15 percent of those hospitalized require care in intensive care units to save their lives.

The novel virus continues to distinguish itself from seasonal flu by causing severe cases and deaths mainly in people younger than 50, the agency noted.