About a quarter of the nearly 13,000 Indians who live in Brazil came down with malaria last year alone, according to the National Health Foundation. Aggravating matters, about a third of all Yanomami suffer from river blindness, a disease transmitted by black flies that causes sight-impairing lesions on the eyes. Other symptoms include alligator-skin, boils and savage itching. Though not fatal, the disease often leads to permanent blindness, leaving victims unable to hunt or farm. Health workers on the Brazilian side say the situation is even worse in neighboring Venezuela.
Entire communities travel by foot from long distances to receive attention at our medical posts.
Venezuela does nothing for them. Brazil does only a little bit more. Thirteen guard posts set up after the reservation was created in 1992 were dismantled in 1995 because of scarce funds. The Brazilian Non-Governmental Organization, or advocacy group, works closely with the Yanomami. Because of this, many Yanomami are becoming increasingly dependent on the lawless gold miners' camps for handouts and low-wage work.