Quilombolas have slow vaccination against Covid, and teenagers are left behind

Arms are not enough to be vaccinated against Covid in Quilombo Conceição das Salinas, in Recôncavo Baiano – it takes courage. Community vaccination began with the police at the door of the immunization center and prosecution threats against those vaccinating themselves. And this treatment, by the Municipality of Salinas da Margarida (BA), was not an isolated case.

Although they have won a lawsuit in the STF (Supreme Federal Court), which guarantees them as a priority group, these communities are still at the end of the vaccination list. Only 49% of adult quilombolas received the first dose and 48% the two, according to a survey carried out in 204 quilombos published in December by Conaq (National Coordination of Articulation of Rural Black Quilombola Communities). In the country, 88% are already fully vaccinated, according to the press consortium.

Communities formed by descendants of the enslaved continue to face difficulties in getting vaccinated. The biggest one, according to leaders heard by Repórter Brasil, is structural racism, which makes city halls and public agents not recognize them as quilombolas – thus denying the right to priority vaccination. The absence of a reliable census of these peoples is also harmful, as insufficient doses reach the communities.

The current concern concerns the vaccination of teenagers, which began in Brazil in June. The Ministry of Health has been distributing the doses to the states, but without indicating the amount intended for the quilombolas. Only 10 of the 204 quilombos mapped in the 3rd Quilombola Vacinometer started vaccinating young people.

“The coronavirus exacerbated the problems we already had, with the lack of structure, equipment and human material”, says Magno Nascimento, from Quilombo África, in Moju (PA). “We thought that relief would come when the STF decided, almost a year ago, that the quilombolas had priority,” he says, frustrated. That’s not what happened.

In February 2021, the STF ordered the government to draw up a plan to fight Covid in the quilombos and guarantee priority vaccination. The court also banned eviction actions during the pandemic and forced the creation of a working group to establish dialogue with the quilombolas, through Conaq.

There have been 16 meetings so far, but without major advances, says teacher Givânia Maria da Silva, from Quilombo Conceição das Crioulas, in Salgueiro (PE). “It’s unfortunate that we have this diagnosis. If the plan hasn’t worked so far, the chances of moving forward are slim.”

In a new decision, issued last Friday (17), the STF minister Edson Fachin determined that Health guarantees the vaccination of quilombola adolescents and the application of the booster dose as a matter of priority. In the minister’s view, this has not been happening.

The ministry defended itself in the action saying that it distributes the doses with “express indication to local managers” for quilombola vaccination. For Conaq, Fachin and even for the PGR (Attorney General’s Office), however, the government lacks commitment. “Unfortunately, the federative entity acts as if the pandemic were a hypothesis to happen and not a serious and urgent fact”, said the PGR to the Supreme Court.

“An interesting plan to fight Covid was put together with the participation of Conaq, but it is unfeasible because the government does not allocate a budget for this public”, says Carmela Zigoni, political advisor at Inesc (Institute of Socioeconomic Studies), who participates in the meetings .

The Ministry of Health informed that it has already sent enough doses for all quilombolas, estimated at 2.2 million people, and that it guides managers and professionals to register them in the health systems. The Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights reported that 51% are with the first dose and 45% with the second, and that the data has not been updated since the 9th, due to problems with the Health website.

Denialism

The difficulties in vaccinating the quilombolas are linked to a historical problem: “There has never been a census of the quilombola population, we only have estimates. Therefore, fewer vaccines arrived at the communities than necessary”, says Givânia da Silva.

To send doses to states and municipalities, the Ministry of Health relies on the 2010 demographic census, when quilombolas were not considered, and on a mapping done by IBGE in 2019.

“How can you make public policy if you don’t know who and where the people are?”, says lawyer Vercilene Francisco Dias, from Quilombo Kalunga, in Cavalcante (GO).

Another historical complaint from the communities is the fact that there is no specific structure to take care of health issues – just like the indigenous people, who have their own system and budget. The demand was made in meetings with the government, but the argument is the same: lack of resources.

Another problem that hampers vaccination and impacts these peoples is the digital of the Bolsonaro government: the suffocation of policies aimed at quilombolas. The government excluded this audience from the 2020-2023 Pluriannual Plan, which plans the budget for the period, according to an analysis by Inesc.

“All the programs for quilombolas are practically extinct and it was only with the action at the Supreme Court that any possibility of dialogue with the government emerged,” says Dias.

The traditional treatment given to quilombolas reached the extreme in Salinas da Margarida (BA). In a post on Facebook, the city hall said that it did not recognize the quilombo, but that, as determined by the Ministry of Health, it would apply the 416 doses received in the “supposed quilombola community”. The text, later erased, threatened those who could “falsify” the self-declaration with “appropriate measures, including criminal ones”.

Vaccination started the next morning at the school in the region with two vehicles at the door. There was a municipal servant intimidating people who entered, insinuating that they were posing as quilombolas just to receive the vaccine. Sought, the city did not respond.

For Elionice Conceição Sacramento, leader of the quilombo, the presence of the police in a place “to guarantee life” intimidated the community. “In the history of Bahia and Brazil, we don’t know of another quilombola community where the mayor prefers the population to get sick and die.”