WORLD NEWS MARCH 27, 2020 / 6:12 PM / UPDATED 15 MINUTES AGO

Doctor working with Amazon tribe tests positive for coronavirus

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A doctor working with the largest tribe in the Amazon has tested positive for the coronavirus, Brazil’s Health Ministry said on Friday, ringing alarm bells that the epidemic could spread to vulnerable and remote indigenous communities with devastating effect.

The doctor, who has not been named, had returned from vacation on March 18 to work with the Tikunas, a tribe of more than 30,000 people who live in the upper Amazon near the borders with Colombia and Peru.

He developed a fever later that day and went into isolation, testing positive for the respiratory disease COVID-19 a week later, the ministry said.

Eight tribe members he treated on his first day back working for the indigenous health service Sesai have also been isolated in their homes and are being monitored, the ministry said.

The doctor’s infection is the first confirmed case of the virus directly present in an indigenous village. It raises fears of an outbreak that could be lethal for Brazil’s 850,000 indigenous people that have a history of decimation by diseases brought by Europeans, from smallpox and malaria to the flu.

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