Venezuela slows Amazon Indian swine flu outbreak

* Quick medical action helps Venezuela's Yanomami Indians

* Six deaths investigated as officials monitor situation

By Frank Jack Daniel

PUERTO AYACUCHO, Venezuela, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A potentially devastating outbreak of swine flu among the Yanomami Indians in Venezuela's Amazon rainforest appears to be contained after a rapid medical response in the isolated zone.

Considered to be the largest isolated Amazon tribe, with a population of about 30,000, the semi-nomadic Yanomami had limited contact with the outside world until 50 years ago.

Since the 1960s, the Yanomami population has been hard hit by illnesses brought by gold miners and other outsiders.

The deaths of six Yanomami are being investigated for possible links to the H1N1 virus. But Neris Villalobos, chief epidemiologist for the state of Amazonas, said the initial outbreak peaked at the end of October and was waning.

Possibly spread by outsiders at a government-organized event last month, flu symptoms showed up in more than 1,000 Yanomami, local health officials said. The number of new cases has declined sharply since then.

"The action taken has been successful, although we cannot yet say that the situation is over," Villalobos told Reuters in Puerto Ayacucho, capital of the local Amazonas region.

She said medics still needed to visit far-flung villages to check for any possible undetected cases of the disease. Medics have given Swiss drug maker Roche's (ROG.VX) flu drug Tamiflu to more than 2,000 villagers in the tribal area, accessible only by river or air.

Socialist President Hugo Chavez's government in recent years has expanded health services to the Yanomami. About 30 doctors are now permanently stationed on the Venezuelan side of the Yanomami region, which straddles the Brazilian border and is about as large as Greece.

Many are Cubans who form part of Chavez's popular nationwide drive to put doctors in remote communities.

During the outbreak, Cuban-trained Venezuelan doctors were flown in to bolster care. "If they had not taken the measures in a timely fashion, this would have been a truly enormous epidemic," said Cuban doctor Giovanni Castellano.

Illegal gold mining in the region, especially on the Brazilian side of the border, spread disease such as malaria among the tribe in the 1980s and caused the deaths of about 20 percent of the population in a seven-year period.

Tribe members typically live in circular communal huts built around a courtyard. The men hunt for food and the women plant dozens of different crops in clearings. Every few years they move to new forest areas to let land regenerate.

The H1N1 virus appears to have entered the Yanomami's rainforest home during a meeting organized by government officials to mark the Oct. 12 anniversary of the arrival in the Americas of explorer Christopher Columbus, medics said.

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Will Dunham)