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Virus vaccine ‘possible’ by election: Trump

By AFP
August 07, 2020

Washington: President Donald Trump on Thursday said that a vaccine may be produced ahead of the US presidential election on November 3 -- a more optimistic timeline than given by his top infectious diseases doctor.

Asked by radio talk show host Geraldo Rivera whether a vaccine could come by the election, Trump said: "I think in some cases, yes, possible before. But right around that time." Trump said the vaccine would be ready "sooner than the end of the year. Could be much sooner."

"We have a lot of vaccines under study by the way. We look like we’re going to be really good on vaccines and therapeutics also," he said. A more careful note was sounded on Wednesday by Dr Anthony Fauci, a lead government official on the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci said he was "cautiously optimistic" of success and that "somewhere towards the end of the year, the beginning of 2021, we will know whether they have a safe and effective vaccine."

The Trump administration is pouring federal funds into vaccine development, seen as the only way to stop the virus and end the mass shutdowns and social distancing that have crippled economies around the world.

Meanwhile, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon have already seen their homelands ravaged by illegal deforestation, industrial farming, mining, oil exploration and unlawful occupation of their ancestral territories.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has magnified their plight, just as the forest fires are raging once more. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is a vital resource in the race to curb climate change -- it spans over 7.4 million square kilometers (2.85 million square miles).

It covers 40 percent of the surface area of South America, stretching across nine countries and territories: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Around three million indigenous people -- members of 400 tribes -- live there, according to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO). Around 60 of those tribes live in total isolation.

The following is a look back over at how the novel coronavirus spread through the Amazon jungle, and how those communities are handling the crisis. In mid-March, panic struck Carauari, in western Brazil.

Carauari is home to one of the most isolated communities in the world, and is only accessible by a week-long boat ride from Manaus, the nearest major city. At first, the virus was seen as a threat that was well removed from the multi-colored houses on stilts that overlook the Jurua river, a tributary of the Amazon.

But the announcement of the first case in Manaus, the regional capital of Amazonas state, quickly sowed panic in the community.

No one in Carauari had forgotten how diseases brought by European colonizers ripped through the native populations in the Americas, nearly eliminating them altogether due to their lack of immunity.

"We’re praying to God not to bring this epidemic here. We’re doing everything we can -- washing our hands often, like they tell us on TV," said Jose Barbosa das Gracas, 52. The first confirmed case amongst Brazil’s indigenous population was confirmed in early April: a 20-year-old health care worker from the Kokama tribe, who lived near the Colombian border.

She had worked with a doctor who also tested positive. Sensing the mounting threat, indigenous leaders and celebrities sounded the alarm, warning that Amazonian indigenous communities could face annihilation without help.

"There are no doctors in our communities. There is no protective gear to aid prevention," Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, the elected leader of the collective of Amazon indigenous organizations, said in late April.

For Yohana Pantevis, a 34-year-old inhabitant of Leticia, in Colombia’s Amazonas state, "falling ill here is always scary, but now we’re more afraid than ever." Brazilian-born photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado, known for his work in the Amazon, warned of the "huge risk of a real catastrophe."

"If the virus gets into the forest, we don’t have a way to get help to them. The distances are so huge. The indigenous people will be abandoned," said the 76-year-old. "I call that genocide -- the elimination of an ethnic group and its culture," he said, accusing the government of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of anti-indigenous policies.