(Newswire.net— May 14, 2020) — The team of the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders arrived to the United States for the first time in history to help the Navajo people, whose survival is seriously endangered by the coronavirus pandemic, CBS News reports.
The team consists of doctors, nurses, a specialist in hygienic and sanitary measures, one logistician, and one educator who will promote the importance of protecting the health of the community, and they will remain among the local tribes of the Navajo people until June.
Doctors Without Borders typically go to third world countries to help people in dire need of medical help. This is the first time they visited the US.
“There are many situations in which we do not intervene in the United States, but this has a particular risk profile,” Jean Stowell, head of the organization’s U.S. COVID-19 Response Team, said to CBS News.
Indian tribes are completely forgotten and are being neglected by the US government in this emergency situation due to the pandemic, the report said. Some 3,204 Navajo people are infected with the COVID-19 virus and 102 dead have been recorded so far among the members of the Navajo people.
That is, on average, significantly more than in any other community in the United States, the report said.
It is feared that the death toll of the pandemic among the Navajo people could be catastrophic and could seriously jeopardize their continued survival.
Today, about 170,000 members of the Navajo people live in reservations between the American states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
The Navajo people are especially endangered because they do not have access to, nor can they provide basic preventive protection measures.
One of the three Navaho communities does not have running water or electricity. They do not have the possibility for self-isolation, and the authorities did not supply them with basic protective equipment.
The risk is all the greater because the above-average number of members of the Navajo people suffer from obesity and diabetes, two factors that increase the possibility of infection and mortality during the COVID-19 crisis.
Some Navajo tribes have completely closed the borders of their reservations, but that is not enough, because the Navajo people are completely dependent on the help of the American government for food, and in almost every other matter, including their water supply.
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) is an international humanitarian medical non-governmental organization of French origin best known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases.