NEWSSCIENCE science.org
It has taken four long trips between
June and September to vaccinate more
than 700 people living on three reserves on
the banks of the Iriri, Xingu, and Riozinho
do Anfrísio rivers. The number of people
vaccinated so far might seem small, but it
includes many of the estimated 1700 river-
ine people living in these reserves, located
in the vast mosaic of federally protected
lands called Terra do Meio (Middleland)—
an area about the size of Iceland that abuts
Indigenous reserves. The whole Amazon
forest likely contains tens of thousands of
riverine people, but they haven’t been for-
mally counted. Also lacking are centralized
data on how many have been vaccinated
through government campaigns or NGO
missions like this one.
“It is a relatively small number of people
spread on a gigantic territory,” Pellegrino
says of the riverine groups. “And that is our
biggest challenge.”“HELLO, HELLO EVERYONE!” The expedi-
tion is coming in 2 days with COVID-19
vaccines and exams. Copy that?” a crew
member in Boa Esperança announces into
a ham radio transmitter. “Positive! Copy
that!” come the crackling responses. As the
vaccination team proceeds up the river, it
relies on radios like this, the only form of
communication available to many riverine
people, to spread the word about upcoming
visits. That’s how 63-year-old Francisco dos
Santos, a nut harvester, fisherman, and lo-
cal singer known as Chico Preto, learned
about the vaccination.
Dos Santos’s 79-year-old wife, Maria
Madalena Freire, narrowly survived a severe
case of COVID-19 in August 2020. Local or-ganizations and NGOs offered her an emer-
gency air evacuation, which she declined,
saying she wished to “die in the forest.”
But that experience impelled the couple to
sail for 2 hours in a motorized canoe to a
vaccination site in the village of Manelito,
about 160 kilometers up the river from Boa
Esperança. “We wish we could have brought
more people with us, but the fuel was not
enough,” dos Santos says. The medications,
checkups, and basic blood tests offered by
the team were an extra draw, he says.
Dos Santos, like most riverine people in
the region, is a descendant of Indigenous
people and “rubber soldiers,” immigrants
from northeastern Brazil sent by the gov-
ernment to the forest to harvest latex for
the U.S. war effort during World War II.
They now support themselves by fishing,
hunting, and harvesting Brazil nuts and theCaption goes here. Nat ad quae rem quidest, qui
odicatiorem quiassitia verem alitatus eum aut
acepuda si iliquiant.In small aluminum boats (left)
a crew transports COVID-19
vaccines through the shallow
Riozinho do Anfrísio River.24 DECEMBER 2021 • VOL 374 ISSUE 6575 1551