The Candoshi people in Peru's northern Amazon jungle are close to extinction from a hepatitis B infection that has gone unchecked since 2000, tribal leaders and health officials said Tuesday.

"My people are suffering, we're in real danger of extinction," said Candoshi chief Venancio Ucama Simon.

Standing next to a Candoshi woman suffering from hepatitis-induced cirrhosis who doctors said has only two years left to live, Apu, or chief, Ucama called on the government to declare a health emergency in his region.

Speaking through an interpreter in Lima, Ucama accused Peru's health authorities of decades of inattention, letting hepatitis B and other diseases run unchecked, threatening to wipe out not only the Candoshi but other indigenous groups, including the Shapra, Awajun, Achuar and Huambisa.

All the ethnic groups live in Peru's remote Daten del Maranon province, in northern Loreto department.

"So far, 80 people have died from hepatitis B since 2000," said Gianina Lucana, a Candoshi nurse working for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

She said the disease broke out in the 1990s, when Occidental Petroleum Corporation was granted exploration rights in her jungle region.

"We had no cases of the disease before then," she added.

But she noted the lack of reliable data on how many of her people have been infected with hepatitis B. The latest statistics, in 2000, mentioned 169 cases.

"From that time to now, however, things have deteriorated badly. There have been lots of deaths apparently from hepatitis B, but it's been impossible to determine exactly how many because of lack of medical attention," the nurse said.

Ucama complained that federal and local health authorities were trading blame for the plight of the Candoshi and citing the high cost of hepatitis B treatment as a reason for the inattention.

"Does that mean that because it's very expensive they're going to let our people die out?" asked Lucana.

The Candoshi population is currently estimated to number 2,400. It is highly praised for its ancestral conservationist culture, which the WWF said has helped restore Amazon wildlife around lake Rimachi, Peru's largest in the region.