An update from the Amazon: Health expeditions in Altamira, Pará, Brazil
Rainforest communities in Altamira, Pará, Brazil, have long voiced the need for healthcare access as a planetary health solution.
Since 2020, health expeditions have been a way to provide medical care for communities, particularly those in rural and hard-to-reach areas of this climate-critical area of the Amazon rainforest.
On a series of recent health expeditions in 2025, focusing on the Iriri Resex, Riozinho do Anfrísio Resex and Maribel communities, vaccines were offered to patients as immunization against diseases and viruses, including; TB, Hepatitis, polio, yellow fever and COVID-19.
Access to all routine vaccines like these helps to prevent exposing the population to the risk of diseases that can have serious complications and diagnostic delays due to lack of access to health services and transportation in serious cases.
In total, the most recent expeditions saw 722 people vaccinated, with an equal distribution between genders.
The expeditions also revealed areas for improvement; medical coordinators identified that, among patients from Iriri and Maribel, a lack of vaccine access has resulted in 42% of patients experiencing routine vaccine delays, including loss of schedule.
Another issue identified was misinformation about vaccines originating from the circulation of fake news among WhatsApp groups in the Resex, so the team carried out communications just before and during the entry into the Resex, informing about the safety of vaccines, their importance for the health of the population and warning about fake news.
Why are vaccines a planetary health solution?
In Indonesian Borneo, where HIH affiliate ASRI has been improving rainforest communities' access to healthcare since 2007, data has shown have shown $65.3M in carbon emissions averted, reduced logging (over 90% drop in logging households), increased health and wellbeing (a 67% drop in infant mortality among other health improvements), regenerated rainforest via 21,000 hectares of secondary forest regrowth.
These results demonstrate that only when we treat the health of people and the planet as interconnected do we truly improve planetary health.
The health expeditions were completed in partnership between the Health Department of the municipality of Altamira, Residents Associations, and HIH’s Brazilian affiliate SAMA-HIH.