Deaths jump in Brazil's indigenous tribes as virus spreads

Indigenous midwife Moy from Satere Mawe ethnicity, attends a protest demanding the entrance of traditional healers and better medical care at the Hospital Nilton Lins, which inaugurated a exclusive area for indigenous people to be treated from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Manaus, Brazil June 3, 2020. The message on her forehead reads "Differentiated Health". REUTERS/Bruno Kelly

BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Coronavirus is spreading fast through Brazil's indigenous populations, with deaths caused by the disease increasing more than five-fold in the past month, according to data collected by a national association of first peoples.

Many epidemiologists had hoped remote locations might protect the tribes, but the virus, which first took hold in Brazil's cosmopolitan state capitals of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is increasingly devastating these far-flung communities where basic healthcare is often precarious.