This is the online version of the Thaís Oyama newsletter (24) sent out yesterday. The complete edition provides further data on Paulo Cesar Basta’s study and shows how the Bolsonaro government has worsened the situation of the Yanomami. Would you like to receive the newsletter first and directly by email? Click here. UOL subscribers can also receive ten exclusive newsletters each week.
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Oswaldo Cruz Foundation physician and researcher Paulo Cesar Basta coordinated a Unicefcommissioned survey into malnutrition among indigenous children in eight Yanomami villages.
1 How does a Yanomami child die of malnutrition?
It can occur within a few days if the child has diarrhea with profuse vomiting, for example. This speeds up the dehydration process and you can lose the child overnight as there is generally no immediate help or people trained in basic support procedures in the villages. There are 370 Yanomami villages in Brazil and only 78 have health posts.
But the more common pattern is a slower, more insidious death. With no garbage collection, sewerage or drinking water in the villages, the ground the children crawl on is polluted and the water they drink often comes from lakes with all sorts of human and animal waste. In addition, with the invasion of the miners, the supply of food has become increasingly scarce.
So what happens is that a child born of normal weight, after being contaminated by microorganisms in the soil or water and having their first diarrhea, suffers a significant weight loss and no longer recovers on the contrary, in environments where this is the the case is, the case is basic requirements for nutrition and medical care, it no longer increases.
From there, this child stops building muscle tissue due to limited access to protein, stops reserving nutrients for bone and joint growth, and saves what few nutrients are available to focus on maintaining their vital organs. The child will try to use what few nutrients are available to sustain life. This consumes the body.
2 How does this process affect the appearance and behavior of the child?
She becomes apathetic, doesn’t walk, doesn’t play, can’t get out of her mother’s sling. The color of the skin changes, becoming yellowish and sometimes grayish. The hair becomes thinner and lighter.
Some children from the Yanomami villages look like little blond Indians. This is an indicator of severe malnutrition which today, in the 21st century, only occurs in subSaharan Africa. Children with this malnutrition are only found in subSaharan Africa.
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