Better alone than in bad company: contact and contagion with isolated and recently contacted indigenous people in Brazil and challenges for their protection and health care

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present and discuss the vulnerability of indigenous people in voluntary isolation due to epidemics resulting from contact with representatives of our society and to point out the challenges for health care in situations of imminent contact. Based on the authors’ experience in the health care of isolated and recently contacted indigenous communities and on information in the indigenous literature, examples of the high mortality that affected some indigenous peoples in periods after break of their isolation state are presented. The article updates the existing information on isolated indigenous peoples in Brazil, discusses the indigenous policy formulated for them, the threats to which they are subjected by the advance of the illegal invasion of their territories and alerts to the possibility of new contacts of these groups and the surrounding society, in current context of attack on indigenous rights aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It contextualizes the susceptibility of isolated indigenous peoples, the need to be ready for future situations of contact and measures to avoid contagion when the isolation of these peoples is interrupted.