-Angela Valenzuela
· May 19 2020, 12:45 ET | The U.S. Sun
COVID-19 is ravaging food markets in Latin America and overwhelming communities from the packed city slums to tribes in the Amazon.
The region is now the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic with authorities finding bodies in the streets as they struggle to enforce lockdown restrictions.
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A pregnant coronavirus victim is taken off an ICU plane in Manaus, BrazilCredit: Reuters
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Health workers in Mexico City say farewell a stretcher-bearer who died of Covid-19Credit: AFP or licensors
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More than 5,000 people have died of Covid-19 in MexicoCredit: AFP or licensors
Brazil remains the worst-hit country in Latin America and has the third largest number of infections in the world at more than 250,000.
More than 85 percent of intensive care beds are full in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
There are now fears that Latin America's street markets may have helped spread the killer bug.
In Lima, four out of five merchants in the city's major fruit market have tested positive for Covid-19 while spot tests at five other markets show at least half the workers had the disease.
Cops and the military are now carrying out testing at markets after Peru’s president Martín Vizcarra refused to shut down the wholesalers.
In the capital, patients took up 80 per cent of ICU beds as of Friday. The country has the world's 12th-highest number of confirmed cases, with more than 90,000.
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A tribe member in Brazil's Amazonas State collects medicinal plants to treat the symptoms of Covid-19 Credit: AFP or licensors
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The tribes in the region have refused help from medical authorities to beat the disease Credit: AFP or licensors
Infections are also increasing in poor areas of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, where authorities relaxed strict lockdown measures last week, allowing some businesses to open and children to walk outside on weekends.
Slums in the city account for 30 per cent of Covid-19 cases while the country as a whole has over 8,000 infected and a death toll of 382, official figures show.
In Chile's capital Santiago, more than 90 per cent of intensive care beds were full last week.
The city's main cemetery dug 1,000 emergency graves to prepare for a wave of deaths.
In Colombia's Amazon region, cases have shot up in recent weeks, from 105 at the start of the month to 1,006 on Monday.
The infections are concentrated in Leticia, a city on the Amazon river that borders both Brazil and Peru.
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A crematorium worker holds an urn in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico stateCredit: AFP or licensors
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The novel coronavirus has killed more than 30,000 people in Latin AmericaCredit: AFP or licensors
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According to official reports, slums represent 30 per cent of the positive cases in Buenos AiresCredit: Getty Images - Getty
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A man sleeps in a mattress in the middle of a street in a slum in Buenos Aires, ArgentinaCredit: Getty Images - Getty
Locals believe it's related to the increase in cases in Brazil's Amazon.
Pictures have emerged of indigenous tribes in the Brazilian state of Amazonas collecting medicinal plants to treat the symptoms of the coronavirus.
The indigenous tribes in the region have refused medical help from authorities and prefer to rely on their own ancestral remedies.
In Mexico, intensive care occupancy is below 50 percent in most cities, although deaths have begun to overwhelm funeral homes and crematoriums in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa.
More than 5,000 people have died in the country while over 51,000 have tested positive.
Covid-19 is sickening thousands in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito, where 80 per cent of intensive care beds were occupied as of Friday.
“In terms of intensive care, we're stripped bare," the city's health secretary Len Mantilla said.
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Shocking images showed Valnir Mendes da Silva, 62, lying dead in Rio de JaneiroCredit: Reuters
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Residents said it took authorities 30 hours to remove the bodyCredit: Reuters
But why are cities in the region struggling to cope with the pandemic?
Some doctors say patients are dying because of a lack of ventilators or because they couldn't get to a hospital fast enough.
With intensive care units swamped, officials plan to move patients from capitals like Lima and Santiago to hospitals in smaller cities that aren't as busy – a move which risks spreading the disease further.
Latin American countries halted international flights and rolled out social distancing guidelines around the same time as the US and Europe, delaying the arrival of large-scale infection, said Dr. Marcos Espinal, of the Pan American Health Organisation.
“Latin America was the last wave”, said Dr Espinal, who previously worked at the World Health Organisation.
Some of the hardest-hit cities, like Lima and Santiago, imposed strict, early lockdowns - but officials have struggled to enforce them as the poor need to work to feed their families while the wealthy are used to flouting regulations.
Latin America is the world's most unequal region, a reality that Dr Espinal said made it difficult to balance health and economic growth, with millions facing increased poverty during quarantines, curfews and shutdowns.
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Coffins are unloaded to be buried in a mass grave at the Nossa Senhora cemetery in Manaus, Amazon state, BrazilCredit: AFP or licensors
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A cemetery worker walks near newly dug graves at Tijuana Municipal Cemetery 13 in Tijuana, MexicoCredit: Getty Images - Getty
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Aerial picture showing recently dug up graves, ready for burialsCredit: AFP or licensors
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