Coronavirus: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro dismisses his Minister of Health

Text by: RFI Follow

Brazilian Minister of Health Luiz Henrique Mandetta announced on Thursday April 16 that he had been dismissed by President Jair Bolsonaro, with whom he totally disagreed on the fight against the new coronavirus.

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The Brazilian Minister of Health announced his dismissal on Twitter. "  President Jair Bolsonaro has just announced to me that I have been dismissed from my duties as Minister of Health,  " said Luiz Henrique Mandetta after a meeting with the Head of State at the Presidential Palace in Planalto. , in Brasilia.

Acabo de ouvir do presidente Jair Bolsonaro o aviso da minha demissão do Ministério da Saúde.
Quero agradecer a oportunidade que me dada, de ser gerente do nosso SUS, de pôr de pé o projecto de melhoria da saúde dos brasileiros e

This announcement had been awaited for several days, so many clashes between the president and the minister were numerous and their visions seemed incompatible on how to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The Minister has always advocated containment, while the President has continued to minimize the impact of the virus and to question the rules of social distancing. Shortly after the announcement, saucepan concerts were heard in several Brazilian cities in protest.

Luiz Henrique Mandetta's successor is oncologist Nelson Teich, who met Jair Bolsonaro Thursday morning, several media said. He had already been approached for this portfolio after the election, in October 2018, of Jair Bolsonaro, but Luiz Henrique Mandetta had been preferred to him, in particular because of his political supports in Parliament.

Supported by the Brazilian Medical Association (AMB), Nelson Teich, like his predecessor, considers that confinement is the best way to stem the pandemic. In a recently published article, he lamented "  the polarization between health and economic issues  ". According to a final official report, more than 30,000 cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Brazil, including more than 1,900 fatalities. But according to estimates by the Covid-19 Brasil group, a collective of university researchers, the number of cases is fifteen times higher . According to them, more than 300,000 people have been infected, making them fear a massacre in the coming weeks. 

(With AFP )

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• Brazil
• Coronavirus
• Jair Bolsonaro