Epidemiological analysis of hospitalized cases of COVID-19 in in-digenous people in an Amazonian region: cross-sectional study with data from the surveillance of acute and severe respiratory syn-dromes in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Indigenous people are considered more vulnerable to new infectious agents. In view of the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19, health authorities are concerned about the possible impact of the pandemic on reaching vulnerable populations, such as the indigenous people of the Brazilian Amazon. Thus, we aimed to carry out an epidemiological analysis of serious cases and deaths from COVID-19 in indigenous population in the state of Para, Brazil. The data was obtained from the public Ministry of Health platform. Data analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20, Chi-square of adherence, the independence test and G test. For spatial distribution was used ArcGIS. We observed 123 COVID-19 cases 46 deaths (37.40%), male gender (76-61.79%), age above 60 years (61-49.6%), the most frequent risk factor was chronic cardiovascular disease (18-14.63%). The predictors of death were invasive ventilation has (10.73) more chances for the outcome death, those not vaccinated against influenza have (3.41) and age (1.4). COVID-19 occurrence was higher in municipalities that have villages with health care or commerce, or with migrants from the Warao ethnic group. Notifications should take into consideration the specific issues of indigenous people so that effective control measures can be defined.