In Brazil's Amazon, malnourished Yanomami children get needed care

In a hospital in Brazil's Amazon, half a dozen Yanomami children are dozing in blue hammocks. Some are suffering from pneumonia, others from malaria. Some even have snake bites. All of them are underfed.

Cases of malnutrition and malaria in the region have skyrocketed in recent weeks, prompting the new leftist government of President Lula Inacio Lula da Silva to declare a health emergency.

Of the nearly 60 Indigenous children being treated at the San Antonio children's hospital in Boa Vista, in the northern state of Roraima, three-quarters of them are Yanomami, and eight of those are in intensive care, according to official data.

The vast majority of children are suffering from "moderate to severe malnutrition," complicated by other ailments including pneumonia, malaria and the stomach flu, paediatrician Eugenio Patricio said.

The San Antonio hospital is the only one in the state -- located on the country's northern border with Venezuela and Guyana -- that can treat children under the age of 12.

To get there, many of the Indigenous patients must be flown in from their remote jungle villages.

While the San Antonio hospital handles the most serious cases, other Indigenous youth and adults are treated at another facility in Boa Vista.

Last week, Lula's government said that 99 Yanomami children under the age of five had died in 2022 on Brazil's largest Indigenous reservation, mainly due to malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria.