Epidemic hits Amazon villages (Malaria, Venezuela)

[EFerrari]

Epidemic hits Amazon villages

CARACAS (Venezuela) - VENEZUELAN health workers say an epidemic that may be malaria has killed dozens of people, decimating three villages of the Yanomami Indians, whose struggle for survival in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest has attracted worldwide support.

Two indigenous health workers who visited the area told The Associated Press on Friday that village chiefs told them that about 50 people have died recently, many of them children.

'There are still many, many sick people,' Andres Blanco said by telephone from Puerto Ayacucho in southern Venezuela. Blanco, a Yanomami health worker in a government program for the indigenous communities, alerted regional officials this month after trekking for days to visit three remote villages.

He returned by helicopter last weekend with a team of government doctors who administered medication and confirmed that many survivors are also infected with malaria.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_597508.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Such bad news. One wonders how it leaped into being so quickly, catching everyone unprepared.

Hope something can be done to sustain the survivors soon.

Here's a map that may seem a little vague. Puerto Ayacucho is the northernmost town noted on it, in the area designated as "Amazonsas," I believe. If I understand it correctly, it's on the Orinoco River.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com.nyud.net:8090/~venezuela/images/amazonas.jpg

http://www.expedition.travel.nyud.net:8090/jomres/uploadedimages/15_property_15.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3032/2940277698_4cb159132e_m.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3169/2939374357_7e4960b75c_m.jpg http://images.travelpod.com.nyud.net:8090/users/sparrow07/trinidad07.1199307180.the-river-that-took-us-off-the-map_.jpg
Hope they get the medication in time to help the ones still living.