Catholic priest gives out masks in coronavirus-stricken Amazon favela

FILE PHOTO: Residents sit near a dog, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), next to the Educandos stream near the Negro river at Educandos slum in Manaus, Brazil, May 19, 2020. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly

MANAUS, Brazil (Reuters) - As the coronavirus has spread rapidly in the poorest parts of the Amazon's biggest city, a local priest has begun to make masks in his church and hand them out across his parish.

Father Alfredo Avelar is going door-to-door distributing masks in Educandos, a crowded favela in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where 16,000 people live in precarious wooden homes perched on a hillside or on stilts over a river filled with trash and sewer water.