Four members of a distant tribe in India – with only 50 members left – have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Members of the Great Andaman Tribe, who have lived for thousands of years in the remote Andaman Islands at the crossroads of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, were recently tested for the virus.
Four men living on one of the coral reef islands in the archipelago were confirmed to have the bug, according to Drs. Avijit Roy, who is leading the fight against COVID-19 on the islands.
They have since been transferred to a hospital, Roy said.
The men may have been infected while traveling to the main Andaman islands, officials said.
Only 50 members of the tribe remain after thousands were killed by British colonizers in the 19th century or later died of disease.
“It is very alarming that members of the Great Andamanese tribe tested positive for COVID-19,” said Sophie Grig, a senior researcher at Survival International in London. “They will be all too aware of the devastating impact of epidemics that have decimated their people.”
India reported 75,760 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, the highest one-day rise since August 7, according to a Reuters tally.
India has seen about 3.3 million cases of coronavirus, behind the US at about 5.8 million and Brazil with about 3.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. More than 60,000 people in the country have died from COVID-19.
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