In Pictures

Gallery|Coronavirus pandemic

In Pictures: Peru’s Indigenous fight virus using ancestral wisdom

Peru has world’s highest per-population confirmed COVID-19 mortality rate, forcing the Indigenous to find own remedies.

Passengers arrive in a public taxi boat to the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa, located along the Ucayali River in the Amazonian rainforest of eastern Peru, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020, amid the
Passengers arrive in a public taxi boat to the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa, located along the Ucayali river in the Amazonian rainforest of eastern Peru. Transportation is one of the biggest hurdles in treating Indigenous groups - some can only be reached by helicopter or an eight-hour boat ride. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Published On 14 Sep 2020

As coronavirus spread quickly through Peru’s Amazon, the Indigenous Shipibo community decided to turn to the wisdom of their ancestors.

Hospitals were far away, short on doctors and running out of beds. Even if they could get in, many of the ill were too fearful to go, convinced that stepping foot in a hospital would only lead to death.

So Mery Fasabi gathered herbs, steeped them in boiling water and instructed her loved ones to inhale the vapours. She also made syrups of onion and ginger to help clear congested airways.

“We had knowledge about these plants, but we didn’t know if they’d really help treat COVID,” the teacher said. “With the pandemic, we are discovering new things.”

The pandemic’s ruthless march through Peru, the country with the world’s highest per-capita confirmed COVID-19 mortality rate, has compelled many Indigenous groups to find their own remedies.

Peru is home to one of Latin America’s largest Indigenous populations, who have lived in the Andean country long before the arrival of Spanish colonisers.

Fasabi said the remedies are by no means the cure, but their holistic approach is proving effective.

Lizardo Cauper, president of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, said of the 500,000 Indigenous people living in the Amazon, an estimated 147,000 have been infected by the virus and 3,000 have died.

While some recover with ancestral remedies, the less fortunate ones often die at home.

A government team travels from one thatch-roofed home to the next, picking up the dead who are taken to the COVID-19 cemetery.

Julia Lina who has been suffering from COVID-19 symptoms, rests in her bed enclosed in mosquito netting after receiving an herbal treatment from Comando Matico volunteers, in the Shipibo Indigenous co
Julia Lina, who has been suffering from COVID-19 symptoms, rests in her bed enclosed by a mosquito net after receiving an herbal treatment from the volunteers. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Comando Matico volunteers Isai Eliaquin Sanancino, left, and Mery Fasabi, collect the leaves of a plant known locally as matico, in the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa, in Peru’s Ucayali regi
Volunteers Isai Eliaquin Sanancino, left, and Mery Fasabi, collect the leaves of a plant known locally as "matico".The buddleja globosa plant has green leaves and a tangerine-coloured flower. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Comando Matico volunteers Mery Fasabi, left, and Isai Eliaquin Sanancino, heat an herbal remedy for a neighbor who has been suffering from COVID-19 symptoms, in the Shipibo Indigenous community of Puc
Volunteers Mery Fasabi, left, and Isai Eliaquin Sanancino heat a herbal remedy for a neighbour who has been suffering from COVID-19 symptoms. Roberto Wikleff, a Shipibo man, said the 10 doctors, nurses and aides who usually staff a nearby clinic abandoned their posts when the pandemic arrived. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Mery Fasabi, left, and Isai Eliaquin Sanancino, carry a pot of herbs steeped in boiling water to the home of a woman infected with the new coronavirus, in the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa
Mery Fasabi, left, and Isai Eliaquin Sanancino, carry a pot of herbs steeped in boiling water to the home of a woman infected with the coronavirus. Fasabi, along with 15 other volunteers, has set up a makeshift treatment centre known locally as Comando Matico that takes the holistic approach to treating the virus. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Sara Magin, who suffers from COVID-19 symptoms, sits inside a tent constructed from a bedsheet as she receives an herbal vapor therapy, at the Comando Matico headquarters, in the Shipibo Indigenous co
Sara Magin, who suffers from COVID-19 symptoms, sits inside a tent constructed from a bedsheet as she receives a herbal vapour therapy at the Comando Matico headquarters. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Art professor Iveri Sanchez and her students ready for their Amazonian street dances which they perform at a traffic light in hopes of receiving tips from the drivers, in the Shipibo Indigenous commun
Peru is home to one of Latin America's largest Indigenous populations, who have lived in the Andean country long before the arrival of Spanish colonisers. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
A Shipibo Indigenous youth lugs a stalk of bananas at the port in Pucallpa, in Peru’s Ucayali region, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Pucallpa’s bustling port where wood, ba
Pucallpa’s bustling port where wood, bananas and other fruit are loaded onto ships for export, is believed to be one of the main sources of the contagion. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
A government team removes the body of Manuela Chavez, who died from symptoms related to the new coronavirus at the age of 88, from inside her home and places her in a casket, in the Shipibo Indigenous
A government team removes the body of Manuela Chavez, who died from symptoms related to the new coronavirus at the age of 88, from inside her home and places her in a casket, in the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]
Family members look in the coffin that contains the remains of Manuela Chavez who died from symptoms related to the new coronavirus at the age of 88, during a burial service in the Shipibo Indigenous
Family members look in Manuela Chavez's coffin, during a burial service in the Shipibo Indigenous community of Pucallpa. Manuela died from symptoms related to the coronavirus. [Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo]