A review of Environmental risks and vulnerability factors of indigenous populations from Latin America and the Caribbean in the face of the COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) was declared a new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 22 May 2020. As of 13 January 2021, the numbers of deaths and cases caused by COVID-19 in LAC reported are 552,000 and 17’485,000 respectively. LAC concentrates the largest percentage of indigenous populations throughout the world. In this region, poverty is persistent and particularly rural indigenous peoples hold the steepest barriers to health services and experience profound discrimination based on ethnicity, poverty, and language, compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. The information regarding the health of indigenous populations, in general, is scarce, and this problem is aggravated in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to address the overall scenario of indigenous peoples in the Latin American and Caribbean region from March 2020 to January 2021, in this manner gathering information regarding health problems, economic, social, cultural and environmental factors that make indigenous populations in LAC particularly vulnerable to serious health effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as compiling the mitigation strategies implemented in indigenous communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous populations
• Latin American and the Caribbean
• risk factors and vulnerabilities
• COVID-19

Acknowledgements

Project: Addressing the cumulative risk from emerging biological, chemical and social threats that will exacerbate the second outbreak of COVID-19 of CEEPAC/UASLP 2020. Jennifer Abigail Meléndez-Moreno for its participation in the analysis of intervention strategies in LAC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CEEPAC/UASLP, 2020, Addressing the cumulative risk from emerging biological, chemical and social threats that will exacerbate the second outbreak of COVID-19.