Covid-19: Indigenous and quilombola communities face government neglect regarding vaccination plan

Victims of federal government neglect, indigenous and quilombolas [Afro-brazilian traditional communities] organizations have pointed out serious flaws in the vaccination plan against Covid-19 executed by the Ministry of Health (MS), which began on January 20.

Regarding the indigenous population, the ministry announced that only “indigenous who live in villages” are among the priority groups contemplated in the first phase of vaccination. The Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), said that the criteria shows institutional racism by defining as indigenous only “people who live in villages of homologated indigenous lands,” ignoring people from urban contexts, which add up to almost half - 46%, according to data from the 2010 Census - of the country’s indigenous population. “The term used by the Minister of Health, ‘indigenous villagers’, takes us back to the period of the military dictatorship that represents discrimination, where the government intends to define arbitrarily who is and who is not indigenous […]. The National Vaccination Plan, therefore, needs to recognize the extension of this priority group and reach it in its entirety,” declared Roque Paloschi, president of Cimi, in a note released by the organization. In addition to racist typification, the indigenous population also fights against misinformation and fake news regarding immunization, stimulated by the firing of messages via Whatsapp and negationist discourses by evangelical pastors.

The quilombolas, on the other hand, which had previously been included in the groups contemplated in the first phase, do not have a stipulated date to receive the vaccines. Under the pretense that there are not enough doses to vaccinate the entire contingent of priority publics, the Ministry of Health declared that “there was a need for a replanning within the priorities initially listed” leaving the quilombola population unassisted. The coordinator of the Chamber of Indigenous Populations and Traditional Communities of the Federal Public Prosecuttion (6CCR/MPF), Eliana Torelly, sent a letter to the Ministry of Health requesting a position on the change, in which she points out that the decision was reflected in the state plans, leaving quilombolas at the mercy of conflicting and inaccurate information.