Violations of the health rights of isolated and recently contacted indigenous peoples in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

This article first characterizes the socio-epidemiological vulnerability (Rodrigues, 2014) to which isolated and indigenous peoples of recent contact are subjected. Through historical examples, we try to illustrate how epidemics and violence resulting from contact processes combine to decimate entire populations. We present and analyze the specific Brazilian legislation that guarantees the right to health to these peoples, and then exemplify how the Brazilian State is failing to comply with it. Finally, we conclude that the violation of the right to health, in a moment of health emergency of pandemic proportions, may come to mean the genocide of these populations, a risk that the Brazilian State is consciously assuming.