Indigenous people in Mexico are vaccinated against the coronavirus

After walking up to four hours from their communities, besieged by drug traffickers, elderly Wixárika indigenous people were vaccinated against coronavirus in a secluded eastern region of Mexico.

A hundred members of this ethnic group, one of the most representative of the country for its culture, received the Chinese immunizer on Friday CanSino Biologics, which requires a single dose.

Most walked about four hours to reach the vaccination point in the community New Colony, in the municipality of Mezquitic (Jalisco state), which is accessed by dirt trails.

The health brigades arrived in town with the accompaniment of soldiers from the National Guard to begin the campaign in this area nestled in the Sierra Madre Occidental.

The inhabitants of the region live under the siege of cartels that dispute the control of routes for drug trafficking in the limits of the states of Jalisco, Zacatecas and Durango, authorities and residents denounce.

For these organizations, the area is key because it offers “many escape routes” faced with possible operations by the authorities, a local woman told AFP who asked not to reveal her name.

The poster Jalisco New Generation and that of Sinaloa they usually place checkpoints on access roads. “They ask you where you are going, where you come from. The simple fact of the interrogation, of seeing the weapons, is something very strong“, she held.

According to an official balance updated until March 18, the pandemic had claimed the lives of 2,627 indigenous Mexicans, especially between the ages of 60 and 74, among the 17,822 confirmed cases of coronavirus in this community.

Vaccine against “fear”

Guillermo Islahuaca Álvarez, director of a section of the Ministry of Health of JaliscoHe told AFP that due to security problems, such as assaults on medical personnel and car theft, it had not been possible to send health personnel to the area since February.

“The companions are reintegrated today after two months of being out of their unit of assignment.” Said the official, indicating that during that period health personnel belonging to the Wixárika people attended to emergency cases.

The first to receive the vaccine was Lucía Mijares, 69.

“I no longer wanted to be afraid,” he told AFP through an interpreter.

According to the 2020 census, 7.3 million inhabitants of Mexico They speak an indigenous language, the main criterion for determining the identity of that sector of the population.

A second day of immunization was scheduled for April 26 in communities where the installation of checkpoints by drug traffickers is reported.

Since last December 24, in Mexico 13.4 million people have been immunized, of which 3.2 million with the complete scheme.

The country, of 126 million inhabitants, is the third most mourned by the epidemic in absolute numbers with almost 212,000 deaths and 2.3 million infections. However, its fatality rate per 100,000 inhabitants is the nineteenth in the world.

In Jalisco 11,574 deaths from COVID-19 are counted.