Drought and state neglect deepen health crisis for Peru’s recently contacted Matsés

A convergence of drought, malaria and hepatitis B outbreaks is producing a severe health emergency among the Matsés people of the Peruvian Amazon, according to reporting by Mongabay's Aimee Gabay. Contact with missionaries in 1969, meant to escape violence from rubber tappers and loggers, exposed the Matsés to diseases they had no immunity against, and drought has since cut off river transport that villages depend on for medical access.

Matsés chief Leo Chuma Teca Beso traveled to Iquitos and Lima to seek state help, saying community members are dying in the streets from advanced hepatitis B complications. Peru's Ministry of Health has recorded zero hepatitis B deaths among the Matsés, but civil society health brigades have screened only about 20% of the population, finding 17 cases so far. Ministry officials cited budget constraints and remoteness for the delays.

The Matsés territory sits within a 16-million-hectare corridor shared with other isolated Indigenous groups, and displacement from disease or drought raises the risk of contact with illegal logging, mining and oil operations that could spread further disease.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.