Epidemics, protagonism and health specific rights: the creation of the Yanomami Special Health District and the Indigenous Health Policy in Brazil (1991-2021)

Abstract

The historically unequal conditions of indigenous peoples are recognized in multiple social determinants, degrees of recognition and access to specific rights, with special impact on their health. Contemporary studies show a consistent replication of inequalities in the living and health conditions of indigenous peoples, when compared to non-indigenous peoples, in Latin America and in countries from different continents. Through a sociopolitical and historical analysis, based on the ethnography of documents produced mainly in the midst of the course of epidemics that would exterminate about 15% of the Yanomami population in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1980s, and its driving character in the formal creation of the country's First Indigenous Health District, I approach the long path of indigenous and indigenist mobilizations around the construction of a National Health Care Policy for Indigenous Peoples in Brazil. It is when a management of epidemics and human rights violations, operated by a transdisciplinary and transnational network acts contrary to the invisibility of this population segment, producing specific data on their health and territory and generating unprecedented legal effects in the Brazilian State apparatus. On the other hand, by highlighting the fundamental and recommendable character of indigenous peoples' participation in the formulation and implementation of health policies, I contrast the solid path of indigenous health policy with the little dialogue between the State, Indigenous Peoples and specific health actions in Brazil, given the current Covid-19 pandemic.