Brazil loses second health minister in less than a month as Covid-19 deaths rise

Brazil’s health minister has abruptly resigned after less than a month on the job – and a day after the country announced it had recorded nearly 14,000 deaths.

The sudden resignation of Nelson Teich was announced in a curt WhatsApp message from the health ministry on Friday morning, and is likely to deepen the turmoil around Brazil’s flailing response to the pandemic.

Teich was Brazil’s second health minister to leave office in less than a month.

His popular predecessor, Luiz Mandetta, was fired by he country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro,on 16 April following disagreements over social isolation measures, which Bolsonaro has dismissed as unnecessary.

News of Teich’s resignation was greeted with dismay by doctors fighting the virus. Albert Ko, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine blamed “the lack of leadership and poor governance”.

“To lose two health ministers will really have a dramatic impact on the country’s ability to contest the epidemic,” said Ko, who has extensive experience working in Brazil.

In a short televised statement to reporters on Friday afternoon, Teich did not explain his reasons for leaving – nor did he answer any questions.

“Life is made of choices and today I chose to leave,” he said. “It’s not easy to be at the front of a ministry like this at such a difficult period.”

On taking office, Teich initially appeared to follow Bolsonaro’s line, arguing that bolstering Brazil’s economy was as important as controlling the pandemic’s growing death toll.

But in recent weeks Teich had increasingly disagreed with Bolsonaro over social isolation and the use of the malaria drug chloroquine to treat coronavirus.

The Brazilian president has enthusiastically backed using the drug, despite a string of medical studies showing that it has no positive effect on people suffering Covid-19, and can possibly cause other health complications.

On Thursday Bolsonaro announced that he wanted to change the protocol regulating the use of chloroquine that Mandetta had introduced.

Teich was publicly embarrassed on Monday when he discovered during a press conference that the president had issued a decree that classified gyms, beauty salons and barbers as essential services.

“This was not our role, it was the president’s decision,” he said, looking flummoxed.

After Teich stood down, his predecessor, Mandetta, tweeted: “Let’s pray.” In an interview for the Estado de S Paulo newspaper, Mandetta described Teich’s short tenure as “a lost month, thrown in the garbage bin”.

Brazil reported 844 new deaths in 24 hours on Thursday night, taking the total to 13,993 and it now has 202,918 cases, making it the world’s sixth most affected country, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.