# 3953
Even the most remote areas on earth are not exempt from an influenza pandemic – as long as there is some contact with the outside world.
Today we get word, via Reuters, of 7 deaths and as many as 1,000 infections among the indigenous tribes people of the Amazon jungle from the H1N1 virus.
The Yanomami, who endured terrible losses from the incursion of garimpeiros (gold miners) into their lands in the 1970s and 1980s (from both violence and disease) are once again under threat from the outside world – this time from the H1N1 virus.
Immunologically naive populations, such as those living in remote regions with little outside contact, are believed to be at far greater risk during any influenza pandemic because they’ve built up fewer immune responses to earlier influenza viruses.
The experiences of past pandemics, and reports out of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada over the past 6 months, all appear to validate those concerns.
Amazon Indian tribe hit by swine flu
Wed Nov 4, 2009 2:07pm GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - Swine flu has hit an isolated tribe of Indians in the Amazon jungle, with seven dying in the last two weeks, Survival International said on Wednesday.
A further 1,000 members of the Yanomami tribe in Venezuela are believed to have caught the flu, the indigenous peoples rights group said.
It is feared the flu could sweep through the area and kill many more Yanomami as the Indians have little resistance to introduced diseases.
About 32,000 Yanomami live in the Venezuela-Brazil border region and form the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon.
