RIO DE JANEIRO, May 7 — Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was hospitalised for a bacterial skin infection while campaigning in the Amazon region, is doing well and will be transferred Monday to Sao Paulo, his lawyer said.
Bolsonaro should be moved from Manaus later in the day, his lawyer Fabio Wajngarten, who also acts as his spokesman, told AFP.
Earlier, the former president’s son Eduardo, a lawmaker, said on social media that his father was “doing well, reacting well to antibiotics.” He had said Bolsonaro was to be taken to the capital Brasilia.
Wajngarten did not offer an explanation for the change in venue.
The post on X features a picture of the right-wing former president, who was in office from 2019 to 2022, laying down in a hospital gown with sheets partially covering him. The skin of his left shin is severely reddened.
On Sunday, the 69-year-old Bolsonaro announced on X that he had been hospitalised in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, for erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection that can cause pain and fever.
Bolsonaro had been in Manaus, the biggest city in Brazil’s Amazon region, to campaign for Alberto Neto, the Liberal Party candidate for the October mayoral election.
Santa Julia hospital confirmed Bolsonaro had been admitted on Saturday.
Bolsonaro suffered from a similar infection in November 2022, shortly after his election loss to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. At the time, he remained for several days at his residence in Brasilia.
He has been hospitalised several times in recent years — most recently in September — and has also undergone multiple surgeries after being stabbed in the abdomen during the 2018 presidential campaign.
Wajngarten said Bolsonaro would be taken to the private Vila Nova Star clinic in Sao Paulo, where his abdominal surgeries were performed. — AFP
