COVID-19 in Ecuador by Ben Blevins
Introduction
In January of this year the news of the appearance of a new pandemic, known as COVID-19 or coronavirus, it started in the city of Wuhan, China (Güell, 2020) in the indigenous communities of Chimborazo it was said that this plague would not reach this part of the world. The geographical distance seemed to warrant this claim. However, studies referring to the health situation of indigenous peoples predicted that, if this epidemic were to occur, the impacts would be devastating, because indigenous populations in the country and in the region are extremely vulnerable to diseases such as hepatitis. B, tuberculosis, malaria, dengue, malnutrition, and anemia that affect their immune systems and leave them exposed to infectious, potentially lethal diseases (Sierra, 2020 ; Lightman, 2020). Indeed, the moment the outbreaks of the pandemic began in the city of Guayaquil, the epicenter of the coronavirus (Labarthe, 2020), among the first affected were indigenous migrants, from the province of Chimborazo. According to the president of the Confederation of Nationalities and Indigenous Peoples of the Ecuadorian Coast (CONAICE), so far, “there are 240 deceased indigenous people” (J. Lema, personal communication, April 22, 2020). The increasing number of dead bodies waiting to be collected from homes, the collapse of the funeral system, the limited capacity of hospitals to take in the sick (Zibell, 2020), forced some families to move to their communities of origin. In some communities of Chimborazo, at the beginning of April, the first patients with COVID-19 appeared and died from respiratory complications related to this pandemic (Naira, 2020). In light of this situation, this article analyzes the impacts of COVID-19 on indigenous communities, the role of indigenous organizations in managing this health crisis, the relationship of the health system with indigenous peoples in the context of the pandemic, and the resurgence of traditional medicine in response to COVID-19. For the preparation of this article, virtual interviews were conducted with the leaders, migrants, and some residents of the indigenous communities of Guamote, Colta, and Riobamba, with the leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE ), CONAICE, Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy(ECUARUNARI) and the Confederation of Peoples, Organizations, Communities and Evangelical Churches of Chimborazo (CONPOCIECH). The data provided by these interviews were interpreted with the press releases and academic reflections regarding indigenous peoples and other reflections that emerged in the context of the pandemic.
The Impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous Communities
The arrival of the coronavirus in the country found everyone unprepared (Labarthe, 2020 ). Neither the government, nor the authorities of the decentralized autonomous governments, nor the indigenous movement was prepared to face the disasters that the pandemic would cause. The Ministry of Health did not have a sufficient protocol to prevent the spread of the virus. According to Santiago Ortiz ( 2020) “Several events revealed the ineptitude of the health authorities, since the Coronavirus was allowed to spread with the arrival of infected travelers who came from Italy and Spain, focuses of the pandemic in Europe, and, instead of isolating them, they were he left them uncontrolled to attend weddings of the high society of Guayaquil and to hold a soccer game for the Copa Libertadores de América ”(P. 3). This situation caused the immediate spread of the virus, making Guayaquil a city with more infections and deaths. The health disasters caused by the virus demonstrated the limits of the "successful model" of the city promoted by the two Social Christian mayors: León Febres Cordero and Jaime Nebot who ruled for almost 30 years, under a leadership "personalist, masculine, elitist, 2020), which even led to thinking about the autonomy of the city, compared to the central State.
With the rapid spread of the virus and the increase in the number of patients and deaths, “generalized chaotic fear and death without borders caused by an invisible enemy” took hold (De Sousa, 2020, p. 32). Among the fatal victims of COVID-19 are the indigenous Chimboracenses who live in the city of Guayaquil.
The migration of indigenous people to Guayaquil dates from the thirties of the last century (Lentz, 1997) and became radical between the seventies and eighties, after the first and second rural reforms (1964 and 1973) that dismantled the finance system(Bretón, 2012) and made it possible for indigenous people to seek other destinations and achieve, in some way, a certain social mobility (Fernández, 2006). Until 1980, the indigenous migrants were young people who worked as stevedores in the markets, as masons officers, as laborers on the cocoa and banana plantations and the harvest, and in the shrimp farms. Since 1990, many of the migrants have established fixed residence. For this decade they migrated to Guayaquil with the whole family, built their homes (Chacaguasay, 2018), and established business positions.
Currently, the towns of Tarqui, Ximena, Febres Cordero, Casuarina, Bastión Popular, Monte Sinaí, Sergio Toral, Paraíso de la Flor, Balerio Estacio, and Santa Mónica are neighborhoods with a strong indigenous presence (Chacaguasay, 2018). Unlike in previous decades, today, indigenous people work as sellers of fruits and vegetables in the markets of Mapsingue and Caraguay, two large markets in the city. In the aforementioned neighborhoods, you can see shops, small stores selling fruits, vegetables, clothing, car accessories, and cyber services owned by indigenous people. But, beyond the businesses known in Ecuador as informal, young indigenous people work in the formal sector (González, 2019), there are teachers in schools and colleges; doctors and lawyers with their own offices (Chacaguasay, 2018), engineers in finance and banking, auditing and accounting (González, 2020). Of these changes, the president of CONSCIENCE considers, “the indigenous people are no longer just stevedores, servants, ready to obey the mestizos. Now we are people with our own business, our car, and our house. Free people who can confront the authorities ``(J. Lema, personal communication, April 22, 2020).
The indigenous people have transported to Guayaquil, the forms of organization of their communities of origin, as happens in Quito (Maldonado, 2012 ) and in other metropolises outside Ecuador (Ruíz, 2015 ). In Guayaquil they have 138 indigenous churches scattered throughout the city, they direct the Rumiñahui Intercultural Educational Unit with 2,600 students. In 2004, 12 indigenous members, with a capital of $ 3,000, founded the Andes Latino Savings and Credit Cooperative. Currently, this indigenous financial entity "has 12,000 partners and a capital that reaches 1 million dollars," according to the testimony of its manager (A. Pilataxi, personal communication, May 12, 2020).
With the expansion of the coronavirus and the deaths as a result of this pandemic and the saturation of hospitals, Guayaquil ceased to be the city of host and opportunities. One of the indigenous leaders states, “We were used to this city. I know there is racism, but the native people here recognize us as workers, honest, so we were at home. But the coronavirus threw us onto the streets, to our deaths, and many have had to return to the commune. How painful this situation is! Some in the mountains no longer had their houses, because they sold and invested here ”(M. Morocho, personal communication, April 14, 2020). In the first days of the outbreak of the pandemic, there were a greater number of infected among the indigenous people, because they work in the markets, they share the same house between several families. “We are used to being in a group, we work in the midst of many people. It is not known who is healthy and which person is sick. Suddenly, the adults began to cough, had a lot of fever and chills and we ended up infected with the virus, ”recalls one of the interviewees (M. Alcocer, personal communication, April 20, 2020).
The lack of distancing also had to do with the handling of the corpses. The families without accepting the restrictions of the Emergency Operations Committee (COE), remained with the deceased, waiting for the officials of the Ministry of Health and the police to proceed to certify the death, carry out the burial or cremation. On March 31, Diario El Universo reported 450 bodies on the waiting list to be removed from the homes. "We feel a lot of indignation because it was unacceptable that they forbid us to pick up our dead, that they did not let us bury on our own and that they incinerated, without our loved ones receiving funeral honors," says one of the interviewees (A. Guamán, personal communication, April 11, 2020).
In indigenous communities, paradoxically, death is a festive moment. There are two days of the vigil, one burial day, and the last one dedicated to the lavatory, in which the relatives, together with the community, bathe in the slopes and clean the house of the deceased (Azogue, 2017 ; Llivi, 2019). The protocols imposed by the COE, including the isolation of sick people and the treatment of corpses, were not understood by the indigenous people. “We never leave the sick alone. We couldn't leave our parents, relatives, and neighbors, that's why we got infected ”, says one of the interviewees (A. Maji, personal communication, April 11, 2020). The sick were not received in hospitals. “In vain we went to the hospitals, thinking that they would receive some care, but they told us that there are no beds, that they should return to their homes,” says the president of CONAICE (J. Lema, personal communication, April 22, 2020).
These realities forced some indigenous families to return to their communities of origin. But due to the state of exception imposed by the government on March 16, due to a health emergency, which suspended the exercise of the right to freedom of movement, the detention of the face-to-face working day in the public sector, the obligation to stay in the public sector. houses, among other aspects (Moreno, 2020), some people returned from Guayaquil to Guamote and to the different cantons of Chimborazo, walking more than 223 kilometers. The dead were transported clandestinely in cargo carts and private vehicles to the communities. Seeing the massive departure of the indigenous people from Guayaquil to the mountains, he made the police establish control operations. Suddenly the border between the provinces of Guayas and Chimborazo was difficult to cross. The sick people who managed to reach their communities found death. Mariana Naira (2020), a reporter for the Diario Plan V wrote, “they came to die like birds,” referring to the indigenous sick from COVID-19 who returned from Guayaquil and found death in the indigenous communities of Chimborazo.
The pandemic not only affected the health and caused death. Many lost their jobs, could not meet debts owed to banks and credit unions. “Because of the illness we had to return here, but we lost the position we had in the Mapasingue market. We have a loan from the bank and we cannot pay the debt. At the bank, they talked about rescheduling the credit, but now I have to pay more than what I initially owed ”, says one of the interviewees who worked in the Mapasingue Market (T. Tenelema, personal communication, April 20, 2020).
Fear of the rapid spread of the virus forced the Ministry of Education to suspend face-to-face classes and promote online teaching, however, in indigenous communities, most families do not have access to the internet. In some cases, they can have internet service by cell phone, but this supposes the cost of 20 to 30 dollars, an amount that in a rural economy with scarce resources is difficult to cover. "Because of the coronavirus we are going through hard times, there is no money. It is time to pay the balance of the phone so that the children can receive the classes. We would like this bad to pass and that the children can go back to school. You can't sell anything and so you don't have money ”, says one of the mothers of the family (M. Jaya, personal communication, April 17, 2020). Likewise, the internet signal does not reach the distant communities of the city. "Here in the community Gramapampa there is no cell phone signal, worse internet. The children have to walk from the communal center to the mountains, the distance of three kilometers. Who knows if they will approve the year because frankly there is no money to give a good cell phone and to put balances at all times ", says one of the parents of the mentioned community (A. Gahuin, personal communication, April 20, 2020). These testimonies contrast with the statements of the Minister of Education that, in her opinion, virtual classes allow continuing teaching from home, improve education, provide quality services to citizens, motivate self-learning (Trujillo, 2020). Of course, the virtual education plan responds to the context of the city but ignores the difficult situation faced by boys, girls, fathers, and mothers in rural areas.
The expansion of the pandemic and the restriction of mobility imposed by the Decree of the state of exception and the restrictive measures of the COE caused the isolation of the populations and the confinement in the houses. This motivated the government and the decentralized autonomous governments, convinced of the shortage of products in the communities, to acquire the food kits, the masks, alcohol, and gel and deliver them in the communities. One of the Chimborazo prefecture officials states, “The authorities without coordination with the councils and the other leaders, believing that there was nothing in the field, bought rice, sugar, and other products and delivered them to the communities” (J Aldaz, personal communication, April 13, 2020). In the language of government and authorities, the delivery of the kits of food, alcohol, gel, and masks was understood as "aids" that they gave to the suffering people. In the logic of Andean reciprocity, those who receive this type of aid are obliged to express gratitude. The supposed help that would be a gift becomes a debt (Ferraro, 2004 ) that requires to be paid overtime.
The delivery of the alleged aid, which ultimately leads to the termination of rights, became stimulating tactics for acts of corruption. In the midst of a health emergency, officials from the Social Security Institute and the Ministry of Health bought masks and medicines at surcharges. A four-dollar mask was justified at the cost of $ 12 (Rodríguez, 2020). The COE, led by the National Service for Risk and Emergency Management, contracted 4,000 bags to pack corpses for $ 148.5 each, at least five times the market price; signed contracts for 7,000 food kits, for $ 150.82 each when their price is less than $ 90 (Hernández, 2020). Cases of corruption due to overpricing of medical supplies, tests to detect COVID-19, food kits reached municipalities, provincial councils, and even poor cantons such as Colta and Guamote. Thus the pandemic, in the words of Boaventura de Sousa, became “a blessing for the almighty and a curse for everyone else” (De Sousa, 2020, p. 33).
The “aid” did not reach all the communities, as the following testimony points out, “the food rations from the government, the mayor's office, and the prefecture reached the communities of the lower part that in the elections voted for them. The highland communities, mostly identified with Pachakutik, have not received the support ”(A. Pacheco, personal communication, April 19, 2020). This causes unrest among the communities and their leaders. However, the critical capacity of the leaders that arose in the heat of the abandonment of the authorities and the activation of the clientelistic practices that they used, allowed the unity of the councils and the bases to be reestablished in order to be able to face the pandemic.
According to the Ministry of Health, there is a downward trend in terms of cases of deaths and the number of infections, however, at this time Ecuador registers 42,106 infected and 3,692 deaths with COVID-19 (Ministry of Health, 2020, infographic 009). Although according to Simeón Tegel's opinion note, published by the Washington Post (Edition, May 19), the coronavirus does not seem to affect populations living at high altitudes, in the case of Chimborazo, precisely at this moment the pandemic takes its toll. greater number of deceased. In the versions of the authorities, it is believed that there is no longer the danger of contagion and death. Without taking these problems into account, they have authorized the change from red traffic light to yellow traffic light, in which mobilization with distance and with sanitary measures such as hand washing and the use of a mask is possible. In the opinion of the authorities, the economy cannot continue to suffer and the population will have to defend itself, following the guidelines given by the Ministry of Health and the COE, a measure that causes concern.
The role of indigenous organizations in managing the health crisis.
In the fight against the spread of COVID-19, according to Milton Hernández, “the community are once again the trench from which containment, defense, and self-preservation actions are forged” (Hernández, 2020, p.1). Indeed, in the face of the threats of the pandemic, in the indigenous communities of Chimborazo, the residents and their leaders immediately accepted the isolation protocol imposed by the COE. “They closed the entrance to the communities, they quarantined people from outside” (G. Tenesaca, personal communication, April 20, 2020). They understood the COE's slogan, “stay at home”, as staying in the community without leaving it. Reflecting on the house, Hernández points out that for the indigenous people, the house is to refer to “the network of relationships that they have woven in the fabric of daily life, of the extended family, of community positions. Staying at home means guarding a checkpoint to block the passage of outsiders, going beyond the recommendations of the health authorities ”(Hernández, 2020, p. 2).
In the midst of the health crisis, the indigenous people, far from thinking about failure, interpreted the pandemic as an invitation to think about the family and the community. “In our communities, the wind does not blow willingly, the rain does not fall by magic, the diseases do not come. They want to teach us something. The disease brings a message and we must think about what the weather and the ailments want to tell us. We will surely learn a lesson, ”says an older adult from Baldalupaxi (R. Chimbolema, personal communication, May 20, 2020).
In order to preserve life, the indigenous people activated solidarity networks, collected eucalyptus leaves, santamaría leaves, Marco and other medicinal plants, potatoes and vegetables, products that they sent to Guayaquil, Machala, and Riobamba; They adapted the medicinal and disinfection practices traditionally used in their environment; they promoted the establishment and operation of community markets to sell or exchange agricultural products. This concern arose from the sense of the family that in Kichwa translates as ayllu , the large family that is in the communities, but that today extends to Guayaquil, Machala, Quito, New York ...
Indigenous people in the process of articulating the capacity for collective self-care did not receive the support of the state or the decentralized autonomous governments. Although it is true, the National Council for the Equality of Peoples and Nationalities issued a protocol in which it is urged to establish direct channels of coordination between the cantonal and parochial authorities with the community authorities, in consideration of their jurisdictional competences within their community lives; take distance measures, alert community control and avoid situations of risk, violence, abuse, assign bonuses, provide water for human consumption, guarantee the supply/endowment of irrigation systems to guarantee and promote agro-ecological production (National Council for the Equality of Peoples and Nationalities, 2020, p. 3). However, these proposals for the emerging and sustained care of peoples and nationalities in the context of COVID-19 did not materialize. In the towns near Riobamba and other cantons, the police came to repress small businesses established in the neighborhoods, while allowing supermarkets to operate.
The absence of the ability to maneuver state officials in coordinating joint actions to mitigate the spread of the virus, made the indigenous leaders listen to and accept the guidelines given by the CONAIE leadership. This organization, in coordination with its regional and provincial branches, asked the indigenous people to maintain isolation measures in their territories, maintain community guards controlling access to territories, promote forms of community exchange; strengthen aid to the city's populations, maintaining fair prices for products and in some cases making free deliveries of these; promote the use of native languages in the fight against the pandemic (CONAIE, 2020).
In Guayaquil, CONAIECE, with the support of CONAIE, organized commissions, including the legal commission, made up of indigenous lawyers and in charge of managing the removal of corpses, obtaining safe-conduct, defense of merchants and their positions in the markets. CONAICE also created the health and communication commissions. These two commissions "prepared materials with messages in Kichwa and Spanish, organized preventive campaigns for the spread of COVID 19 on local radio stations and on social networks, distributed medicinal plants and products from donations from the Chimborazo communities" (J Motto, personal communication, April 22, 2020).
Similar to the indigenous uprisings of 1990, 1994, 2000 and the last uprising of October 2019 (Hidalgo,2020), indigenous organizations in the province of Chimborazo, put aside their differences and articulated joint collective actions. Without waiting for the economic contributions of the companies and the government, through initiatives of the grassroots organizations, CONPOCIECH, CONAIE collected the contributions of medicinal plants and agricultural products in the communities and delivered these products in Guayaquil, Machala, and Riobamba. Transporters and municipal governments contributed with the transportation of donations. “We couldn't wait for the government. We don't trust the government. On our own account, we organize the exchange of aid. The people of the coast responded to our gesture, donating rice and fruits, ”says the president of CONPOCIECH (P. Fernández, personal communication, April 28, 2020).
With the support of the aforementioned organizations, small vegetable and fruit businesses were implemented in the communities, while the popular markets were closed in the city. The small markets in the towns themselves allow them to stock up on basic necessities. Unlike markets, where you can buy products in exchange for money, in neighborhood and community markets you can exchange products. "I am very hopeful, I hope that the time of our former barters will return," says the president of Miraflores (T. Coro, personal communication, April 22, 2020). On the other hand, the restriction of mobilization at the national level prevented the arrival of onions and potatoes at a lower price from Colombia and Peru. This motivates the indigenous people to grow and sell their products. “Now our potato has value, our onions, although small, are desirable and at a good price”, the women of San Luis happily respond (P. Pinduisaca, personal communication, May 12, 2020).
The relationship of the health system with indigenous peoples in the context of the pandemic.
During the health emergency caused by the pandemic, hospitals were saturated. Many of the sick were not received in these health homes, they had to return to their homes and be isolated from the rest of the family members. To all the patients with symptoms of cough, fever, and stomach upset, health operators associated with the COVID-19. Patients with "heart and vascular problems, cancer, with the arrival of the coronavirus, many attentions to these patients have been displaced" (Rivera, 2020 ). On the other hand, indigenous people fear hospitals and the health system, because historically they have been discriminated against by doctors, nurses, and exploited by pharmacies (Burgos, 1997). “It's scary to go to the hospital. Doctors and nurses create guilt complexes. Last year I was hospitalized, they told me that I had contracted the disease from being unclean, for living as I want ”, says one of the interviewees (M. Pilamunga, personal communication, May 18, 2020). Similar to this testimony, another of the interviewees states, “We took my uncle to the hospital, who he brought with a lot of coughs, but they did not want to receive it there, saying, 'You Indians get sick from being unclean, living and reproducing like guinea pigs, being deaf and badly obedient. If you want, turn on the radio to find out about the danger of the virus. ' Thus, we had to go back and wait for him to pass away ”(C. Tiupul, personal communication, May 18, 2020). It is believed that the situation of racism in the health system was overcome because in recent years,2014 ) and there is the National Directorate of Intercultural Health, an entity in charge of coordinating actions and proposing intercultural policies for health care to peoples and nationalities.
In the course of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health and the local media hid the real numbers of the sick and the deceased. In the words of Branco Milovic, the policy of "statistical discrimination" (2020) occurred, with which the government wanted to avoid mass hysteria and evade responsibilities. Indeed, President Lenin Moreno himself, on the national channel of April 2, spoke that "reality exceeds the number of tests and the speed with which attention is paid" and urged "to make the figures transparent, no matter how painful they are. sean ”(Moreno, 2020 ).
The lack of care in the hospitals of the Ministry of Health and in the hospitals of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security, motivated sick people to stay at home, seek care from private doctors and activate some prevention and treatment practices of respiratory diseases that they have in the same communities. One of the people who overcame the COVID-19, says, “I forced my children to take me to insurance or to another hospital. It is scary to go to these places and die alone. My children brought the doctor and here, the yachacs, they gave me bitter waters ”(A. Acalo, personal communication, May 27, 2020). Hospitals continue to be seen by indigenous people as places of death and as entities that certify only death, thus guaranteeing that the autopsy of corpses is not carried out, because it implies destroying the body and thus belittling deceased loved ones.
The resurgence of traditional medicine in response to COVID-19.
The desperation over the deaths caused by the coronavirus and the inability to cover the costs of acquiring the medicines, allow the old practices of disinfection and treatment of respiratory diseases in indigenous communities to be resumed. “On the news, they said that people are dying with a cough and a lot of phlegm. This reminded us that our elders cured with the evaporation of mint, eucalyptus, marco and santamaría ”, says the indigenous doctor from San Luis (A. Gaucho, personal communication, April 23, 2020). When people in indigenous communities suffer from coughs and back pain, indigenous doctors known as yachakkuna, carry out the treatment of these ailments ``with waters prepared with bitter herbs, alcohol, urine, and cocoa butter" (F. Lema, personal communication, April 20, 2020). The yachakkuna argue that “bodies require bitter substances to create antibodies and prevent disease” (A. Alvarado, personal communication, June 3, 2020). These substances would be provided by herbs, ayahuasca, and brandy.
In recent years, ancestral medicine practices were undervalued and associated with shamanism (Velasco, 2018), although the 1998 constitution recognizes the value of traditional medicine and ancestral knowledge. The rejection of ancestral medicine comes from the training of future medical professionals. One of the indigenous students of the medical school, points out, “in the classes, the first health lesson is to demonstrate how wrong the indigenous people are in drinking bitter water and urine. They tell us that urine is full of bacteria. For fear of the coronavirus, we have returned to the practices of our grandparents and we managed to alleviate the pain somewhat ”(H. Paca, personal communication, May 23, 2020). These testimonies evidence "the cognitive liberation" (Svampa, 2020 ) of the indigenous people and the possibility of challenging conventional medicine.
In the context of the pandemic, the yachakkuna , indigenous doctors, and doctors are beginning to be valued, people recognized by the communities for their vocation to cure ailments. These people restore harmony to the body because diseases are understood by indigenous people as the effect of the breakdown of harmony with nature, family, and community. This harmony can be restored with bitter plant waters, clean ones with guinea pigs, and other acts of purification that have to do with advice, baths, and the commitment of the cured person to embark on a new existential path at the service of life and care. of the natural and human environment.
Conclusion
Without denying the economics, social and political disasters caused by the coronavirus, the loss of life of loved ones, indigenous people see in this pandemic an opportunity to rethink life, in relationships with others and with nature, in the search for conflict resolution from their own localities, the possibility of rearticulating the community and organizational fabric, recovering knowledge and ancestral medicine, establishing solidarity networks between indigenous and mestizos and creating immediate responses to health crises and other problems that affect all and all.
There is a generalized criterion in the communities that, without realizing it, for some time we have been locked up, each one worried about themselves, running after economic gains, without collaborating with the needs of others, without participating in community work. In the words of Svampa (2020) “the entire humanity was already in a global quarantine before the coronavirus”. But this situation can be broken by creating a new lifestyle that leads to thinking about reconciliation and mutual care.
The pandemic awakened indigenous people's interest in their organizations, both at the community and at the regional and national levels. Faced with the failures of the government, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security, when facing the disasters caused by the pandemic, the organizations and their leaders were in charge of coordinating prevention actions and avoiding the spread of the virus, to organize community fairs in order to guarantee food sovereignty in the countryside and in the city and to manage the care of the sick. Within the communities and organizations, the indigenous people found themselves safe. On the return road that they undertook from Guayaquil to the Sierra, they had the certainty that the land, the family, and the community awaited them. The idea of "mana sapallachu kani ”, I am not alone, served as a stimulus along the way.
The lack of care for indigenous people in hospitals reflects that the health system continues to be racist, despite advances in rights and health institutions from an intercultural perspective. Hospital discrimination and the lack of resources to acquire medicines, motivated the indigenous people to value natural medicine, the Yachakuna and thus seek ways to mitigate the disasters caused by the pandemic.