We make it clear that there is no immunisation for coronavirus yet, and it might take two years for it to be produced. However, doctors might ask people on community to have the standard flu injection so their body is not fighting this season’s flu and the coronavirus at the same time

Please share with your Yolngu friends and family.

Yolngu Matha language is spoken by the Indigenous peoples of North East Arnhem Land, Australia. Our aim is to deliver accurate and in-depth information on a wide array of subjects to Yolngu in their Original Australian language.

The traditional worldview of Yolŋu means they want in-depth, science-based information in order to understand any new topic. What Yolŋu call the “dhuḏi-dhäwu” – the deep true story. This is the deep true biomedical, zoological story.

Commonly asked Yolŋu questions about COVID-19 include understanding what a virus is, where it comes from (wäŋa), its shape/size/colour (ganda’), and how it is transmitted, reproduces and causes sickness (gakal).

Also in some communities, disease and sickness are thought to be caused by some form of sorcery, spiritual event or sickness country in the same way Europeans did before germs were discovered (for example the word “influenza” has its origins in “influence of the stars”).

Although germ theory is widely known and understood throughout most of mainstream Australia it has never been properly explained to most Yolŋu people.