As the first wave of Covid infections ravaged Manaus in Brazil – forcing residents to bury their loved ones in mass graves – Vanda Ortega Witoto toiled away in minimal protective equipment, trying to keep the virus at bay in the Amazon city’s long-neglected Indigenous neighbourhood.
When the ambulance service refused to send out a vehicle to the area – which had no healthcare infrastructure nor running water – the nurse technician, who goes simply by Vanda, drove the Covid patient to hospital herself.
