Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders first worked in the northeast of Brazil in the early 1990s, when we sent teams to the Amazon region to respond to epidemics among the indigenous community.
One of our earliest projects took place in the state of Roraima, where we trained members of the local indigenous communities as microscopists and indigenous health agents to support the response to a malaria epidemic.
A key indigenous leader who helped us with the project was Jacir de Souza, a former director of the local Roraima indigenous council and an important player in their struggle for land rights.
After more than two decades, Jacir´s life story was reconnected to MSF, when he received treatment for COVID-19 from our team at the Boa Vista field hospital.
