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MANACAPURU, Brazil (Reuters) - Health workers sped along the Amazon river this week to start vaccinating riverside communities, bringing hope to a region hard hit by COVID-19 and now facing a lethal surge driven by a new Brazilian variant of coronavirus.
Wearing protective masks and gowns, they traveled by open motorboat from Manacapuru, a town two hours from the jungle city of Manaus, where hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen last month and cemeteries could not dig graves fast enough to deal with Brazil’s highest death rate.
“I am happy you’ve come. We have lost so many old people and young ones too,” said 83-year-old Maria Araujo after receiving a dose of a British vaccine made by India’s Serum Institute.