BREAKING: Brazilian health minister says President Jair Bolsonaro has fired him amid a dispute over virus policy. Luiz Henrique Mandetta garnered popular support for his pandemic response that included promotion of broad isolation measures.
April 16, 2020 GMT
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after a series of disagreements over government efforts to contain the new coronavirus. “I just heard from the President Jair Bolsonaro the news of my dismissal from the health ministry,” Luiz Henrique Mandetta posted on his verified Twitter profile, adding that he wished success to his replacement, who is yet to be named officially. He confirmed the announcement in a press conference later.
Republicans close to the White House say Trump has complained about Fauci’s positive media attention and sought to leave him out of task force briefings. Bolsonaro, likewise, had convened doctors without inviting Mandetta and, in a televised interview earlier this month, said Mandetta had failed to show “humility.” A few days later, on April 5, Bolsonaro told a group of supporters that he would act against officials in his government who “are full of themselves.
On Wednesday, with Mandetta’s dismissal looking near certain, his health surveillance secretary Wanderson de Oliveira tendered his resignation. An epidemiologist who worked at the health ministry for more than a decade, de Oliveira presided over many of the press conferences when Mandetta was unable, and was also a booster of quarantine measures to prevent the virus’ spread.
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