Brazil’s ex-Minister of Health Pazuello refuses to appear before Senate CPI on Covid-19

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – General Eduardo Pazuello, Brazil’s ex-minister of Health and whose management of the pandemic is under investigation by Justice, on Tuesday, May 5, announced that he will not appear before the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (CPI) because he had contact with people with Covid-19.

“Ex-minister Pazuello says that this weekend he had contact with two colonels who have Covid,” explained Senator Otto Aziz, the committee’s chair, when announcing Pazuello’s failure to appear this Wednesday, as planned.

Aziz said that the committee will decide later when Pazuello’s testimony will be taken, which according to the CPI rules must be in person, although it could be possible to do it remotely.

The committee was created under pressure from the opposition and aims to investigate alleged omissions in the measures implemented by Jair Bolsonaro’s government to tackle the coronavirus. Bolsonaro heads a denialist ultra-right-wing that even today downplays the impact of a pandemic that has killed almost 410,000 people in the country.

Pazuello, a general specialized in logistics but with no previous experience in the health area, was appointed Minister of Health in May last year and remained in the post until last month, when he was dismissed due to pressure from sectors close to the government and Congress.

The general, who authorized the use of drugs in public hospitals with no proven efficacy against Covid-19, allegedly dragged his feet in the purchase of vaccines and criticized the use of masks and social distancing measuresç he is being investigated in the courts for alleged omissions that the Senate committee is trying to clarify.

Pazuello’s statement before the parliamentary committee is viewed with concern by the government, because, unlike the courts, this group is much more political in nature and is mainly made up of opposition senators.

This Tuesday, the committee will hear also ex-minister of Health Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was in office when the pandemic emerged in Brazil, in February 2020, and was dismissed in April that same year for his strong support for quarantines to contain the contagions, a measure that Bolsonaro rejects to this day.

In addition to Mandetta, his successor, oncologist Nelson Teich, who resigned after disagreements with Bolsonaro over the use of chloroquine and other drugs of dubious efficacy that the president also still promotes, has also been summoned to testify.

The current Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, a cardiologist who succeeded Pazuello, will also be required to testify.

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