Indigenous people rejects COVID-19 vaccine, believes Chinese put a chip to control them

Brazil:Indigenous nurse Almeida Tananta battled heavy rainfall from tropical rains while riding his motorcycle for hours crosswise the red-soiled dirt tracks of Tabatinga, a town in the western Amazon that borders the Amazon rainforest and Colombia, and the largest concentration of indigenous Brazilians in the Amazon. Tananta was on his way to apply the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the remote residents of Umariacu, in Alto Rio Solimoes. But when he arrived at the village with wooden roofed houses lying on the Amazon River banks, the nurse's hopes of vaccinating the 1,037 villagers quickly vanished.

"Indigenous people of all ages reject the vaccine. They are terrified that they will turn into an animal or die if they take it, 'Tananta told media.

Tananta has been working with indigenous communities such as the Umariacu for more than 20 years and maintains the frenzy over the COVID-19 vaccine is a new event.

While other vaccines are already known. This COVID-19 vaccine is new. "There are myths that China infected the vaccine, that it contains a chip designed to control indigenous people," he explained.

Indigenous communities residing in remote villages are a preference group in Brazil's national immunization program, as they only have access to essential medical services that are not equipped to treat the virus and practice most community life. They have also become a target for false information.

Tananta blames Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in part for casting doubt on the vaccine's effectiveness, despite the country having the second-highest death toll in the world behind the United States. Bolsonaro refused to take the vaccine himself, questioning the origin of CoronaVac, the most available vaccine from Brazil manufactured by Sinovac Biotech in China.

In October, he declared on Facebook that "Brazilians will not be anyone's guinea pig." It has generated false rumors claiming that indigenous people are being made as test subjects for the vaccine's safety.

The president's rejection of the Pfizer vaccine also sparked flames of conspiracy theories. Referring to a claim that protects the US from liability for the collateral effects of the vaccine (a clause signed by several countries), Bolsonaro joked that he would not accept responsibility if you become an alligator, Superman or if women after the shot beards do not grow.