• DNDi_Logo_No-Tagline_Full Colour
  • Our work
    • Diseases
      • Sleeping sickness
      • Visceral leishmaniasis
      • Cutaneous leishmaniasis
      • Chagas disease
      • Filaria: river blindness
      • Mycetoma
      • Paediatric HIV
      • Cryptococcal meningitis
      • Hepatitis C
      • Dengue
      • Pandemic preparedness
      • Antimicrobial resistance
    • Research & development
      • R&D portfolio & list of projects
      • Drug discovery
      • Translational research
      • Clinical trials
      • Registration & access
      • Treatments delivered
    • Advocacy
      • Open and collaborative R&D
      • Transparency of R&D costs
      • Pro-access policies and IP
      • Children’s health
      • Gender equity
      • Climate change
      • AI and new technologies
  • Networks & partners
    • Partnerships
      • Our partners
      • Partnering with us
    • Global networks
      • Chagas Platform
      • Dengue Alliance
      • HAT Platform
      • LEAP Platform
      • redeLEISH Network
    • DNDi worldwide
      • DNDi Switzerland
      • DNDi DRC
      • DNDi Eastern Africa
      • DNDi Japan
      • DNDi Latin America
      • DNDi North America
      • DNDi South Asia
      • DNDi South-East Asia
  • News & resources
    • News & stories
      • News
      • Stories
      • Statements
      • Viewpoints
      • Social media
      • eNews Newsletter
    • Press
      • Press releases
      • In the media
      • Podcasts, radio & TV
      • Media workshops
    • Resources
      • Scientific articles
      • Our publications
      • Videos
    • Events
  • About us
    • About
      • Who we are
      • How we work
      • Our strategy
      • Our donors
      • Annual reports
      • Our prizes and awards
      • Our story: 20 years of DNDi
    • Our people
      • Our leadership
      • Our governance
      • Contact us
    • Work with us
      • Working at DNDi
      • Job opportunities
      • Requests for proposal
  • Donate
  • DNDi_Logo_No-Tagline_Full Colour
  • Our work
    • Diseases
      • Sleeping sickness
      • Visceral leishmaniasis
      • Cutaneous leishmaniasis
      • Chagas disease
      • Filaria: river blindness
      • Mycetoma
      • Paediatric HIV
      • Cryptococcal meningitis
      • Hepatitis C
      • Dengue
      • Pandemic preparedness
      • Antimicrobial resistance
    • Research & development
      • R&D portfolio & list of projects
      • Drug discovery
      • Translational research
      • Clinical trials
      • Registration & access
      • Treatments delivered
    • Advocacy
      • Open and collaborative R&D
      • Transparency of R&D costs
      • Pro-access policies and IP
      • Children’s health
      • Gender equity
      • Climate change
      • AI and new technologies
  • Networks & partners
    • Partnerships
      • Our partners
      • Partnering with us
    • Global networks
      • Chagas Platform
      • Dengue Alliance
      • HAT Platform
      • LEAP Platform
      • redeLEISH Network
    • DNDi worldwide
      • DNDi Switzerland
      • DNDi DRC
      • DNDi Eastern Africa
      • DNDi Japan
      • DNDi Latin America
      • DNDi North America
      • DNDi South Asia
      • DNDi South-East Asia
  • News & resources
    • News & stories
      • News
      • Stories
      • Statements
      • Viewpoints
      • Social media
      • eNews Newsletter
    • Press
      • Press releases
      • In the media
      • Podcasts, radio & TV
      • Media workshops
    • Resources
      • Scientific articles
      • Our publications
      • Videos
    • Events
  • About us
    • About
      • Who we are
      • How we work
      • Our strategy
      • Our donors
      • Annual reports
      • Our prizes and awards
      • Our story: 20 years of DNDi
    • Our people
      • Our leadership
      • Our governance
      • Contact us
    • Work with us
      • Working at DNDi
      • Job opportunities
      • Requests for proposal
  • Donate
Home > Stories

Duámaco Escribano

Home > Stories

Duámaco Escribano

Patient Story Chagas
23 Feb 2016

Colombia

Duámaco Escribano doesn’t know how old he is. His identity card says he is 29 years old, but those who know him say he must be 25 or 26. In the indigenous community to which he belongs, the Koguis – one of the four ethnic groups living in the Sierra Nevada, on the north coast of Colombia – life isn’t measured in years: it starts with birth and ends with death, however long it may be.

Duámaco lives in Palomino, a small town in the province of La Guajira, in the northern part of Colombia at a remote site, inhabited by the community for hundreds if not thousands of years. He says that access to the area is difficult by motor vehicle, so they must travel there on foot. From the place where he lives to the nearest urban area, the journey may take two hours. The area is isolated from what he calls ‘the Western system’, or what ‘white people’ call ‘civilization’.

He says it is hard to find a hospital or a school as the Westerners know them and, anyway, traditional medicine prevails: the Mamo is the highest authority, the healer and the one who authorizes a patient to go to a ‘white’ hospital, if he sees that the illness goes beyond his ability to provide a solution.

The area where Duámaco lives is infested by ‘kissing bugs’, the insects that transmit Chagas disease. There are many infected among the indigenous population. He knows because since 2003 he works as a community leader in public health. He studied medicine at the University of Magdalena but changed the course to environmental sciences. Now he educates children in his community about Chagas disease and how to avoid the kissing bugs.

Despite the large number of cases of Chagas, which surprised the researchers who visited the area, from the perspective of the Kogui worldview, there is no cause for alarm: ‘Diseases are part of life, born with us because they are a form of natural control’, says Duámaco. ‘What happens is that human beings want to alter the normal cycle of life and, therefore, persist to cure diseases’, he says.

According to his community’s beliefs, the insect that transmits the disease is not bad. It lives among people and drinks their blood, because humans have invaded its territory, leaving it with no options for survival. ‘The kissing bug is a guardian of Mother Earth and by transmitting Chagas disease, it charges us for all the evil that we are doing to the environment. He is charging a spiritual debt’, he says.

Ironically, Duámaco was diagnosed with the disease between 2008 and 2009, he does not remember exactly when. He has the symptoms, but cannot receive the treatment, because it is only for children under 18 years old. ‘That’s the protocol’ said the indigenous health service provider in his area.

‘I dedicate myself to inform my community about Chagas disease, especially the children and youth. But what can I say to the adults, if they cannot receive the treatment?’, he says with some indignation. ‘The EPS [Health Promotion Agency] say they don’t know Chagas because they don’t want to assume the cost to treat it.’ He is aware that there are many people in his community with heart diseases, which, very likely, have their origin in Chagas disease; but it is difficult to ascertain, for those who die in the Sierra Nevada do not have an autopsy and the news of the deaths fail to reach nearby urban centres.

Duámaco doesn’t know what he has done wrong or why Chagas is charging him, but he lives with dignity, serenity, and resignation to his illness. He doesn’t say it, but it seems that his effort to guide his community in health issues is a way to drive them out of neglect, of that deep and dark oblivion into which many people like him are plunged, people who no one knows about, not even when and how they die, there, deep in the Sierra Nevada.

Spanish Portuguese

Chagas disease

Read, watch, share

Loading...
Healthcare worker attending a training
Press releases
10 Jul 2025

New HIV project in the DRC brings life-saving care closer to people with advanced HIV disease

Woman working in a laboratory
News
10 Jul 2025

LEO Foundation partners with DNDi to develop breakthrough drug discovery model for mycetoma 

Press releases
1 Jul 2025

Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) partners with DNDi and Pharco to register an effective and affordable hepatitis C treatment  

Press releases
13 Jun 2025

Serum Institute of India signs a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with DNDi to advance the development of a new treatment for dengue in low- and middle-income countries

Press releases
13 Jun 2025

K-MEDI and DNDi have initiated collaborative R&D to develop a treatment for neglected diseases

News
10 Jun 2025

Bringing life-saving care closer to people living with HIV in Kinshasa 

News
6 Jun 2025

DNDi is partnering with Médecins Sans Frontières South Asia for the Without Borders Media Fellowship 2025 

News
5 Jun 2025

Meet the DNDi Eastern Africa 2024-2025 Media Fellows

VIEW ALL

Help neglected patients

To date, we have delivered thirteen new treatments, saving millions of lives.

Our goal is to deliver 25 new treatments in our first 25 years. You can help us get there. 

GIVE NOW
Linkedin-in Instagram Twitter Facebook-f Youtube
International non-profit developing safe, effective, and affordable treatments for the most neglected patients.

Learn more

  • Diseases
  • Neglected tropical diseases
  • R&D portfolio
  • Policy advocacy

Get in touch

  • Our offices
  • Contact us
  • Integrity Line

Support us

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to eNews

Work with us

  • Join research networks
  • Jobs
  • RFPs
  • Terms of Use   
  •   Acceptable Use Policy   
  •   Privacy Policy   
  •   Cookie Policy   
  •   Our policies   

  • Except for images, films and trademarks which are subject to DNDi’s Terms of Use, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Switzerland License