Brasilia, May 15 (IANS) Brazil Health Minister Nelson Teich has resigned after less than a month in the job following disagreements with President Jair Bolsonaro over the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in South America’s largest country, reports said on Friday.
Teich’s predecessor Luiz Henrique Mandetta had, in a tweet on April 16, announced that Bolsonaro had handed him his notice after publicly criticising him for urging people to observe social distancing and stay indoors.
On the other hand, Teich put in his papers following a decree issued by Bolsonaro allowing gyms and beauty parlours to reopen, the BBC reported.
Bolsonaro continues to oppose lockdown measures. He has termed coronavirus as “a little flu” and has said its spread is inevitable.
Brazil has recently overtaken Germany and France in terms of cases, becoming one of the world’s hotspots with over 200,000 cases. The latest daily figures on Thursday showed 844 new deaths, taking the official death toll to 13,993.
–IANS
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