Brazil’s ex-President Bolsonaro is in intensive care with pneumonia, hospital says : NPR

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has pneumonia and is receiving remedy in an intensive care unit, a hospital within the capital, Brasilia, mentioned Friday.

One among his docs, Brasil Caiado, informed journalists that the 70-year-old’s medical state of affairs was severe.

“Pneumonia in sufferers over 70 is all the time severe as a result of it might progress to septicemia, because the micro organism can usually enter the bloodstream and trigger an much more extreme situation,” Caiado mentioned.

Earlier within the day, Bolsonaro’s eldest son Flávio mentioned on X that his father was being transferred from jail to a hospital after waking up with chills and vomiting.

“I ask for prayers that it not be something severe,” Flávio wrote. Flávio Bolsonaro has mentioned he’ll run for president this yr, and up to date polls present him and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nearly tied.

Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for trying a coup after he was convicted final yr by a panel of Supreme Courtroom justices.

He was admitted to the hospital after experiencing excessive fever, low oxygen, sweating and chills, DF Star Hospital mentioned in an announcement. Exams confirmed bronchopneumonia, a sort of pneumonia, doubtless attributable to aspiration.

“He’s at the moment hospitalized within the intensive care unit, receiving IV antibiotics and non-invasive medical assist,” the hospital mentioned.

Caiado, a heart specialist, mentioned that it was unlikely that Bolsonaro would return to jail within the subsequent few days as a result of the remedy is intravenous and needs to be finished in a hospital setting.

The embattled ex-leader was transferred to a bigger cell in January, however his relations have repeatedly requested the Supreme Courtroom to permit Bolsonaro to hold out his sentence below home arrest. They allege he’s being mistreated and receiving inadequate medical consideration.

On Friday, Carlos Bolsonaro — one of many former president’s sons — mentioned on X “the system, actually and insistently, (is) attempting to kill” his father.

The Courtroom has refuted these claims and refused to permit Bolsonaro to serve his sentence at dwelling.

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized a number of occasions since being stabbed at a marketing campaign occasion earlier than the 2018 presidential election.

In January, police escorted him to the identical hospital for mind assessments after he fell from his mattress.

Bolsonaro and several other of his allies have been convicted in September of trying to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat. The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Courtroom Justice Alexandre de Moraes. There was additionally a plan to encourage an rebel in early 2023.

Bolsonaro was additionally convicted on prices that embrace main an armed prison group and trying the violent abolition of the democratic rule of legislation. He has denied any wrongdoing.

His trial acquired renewed worldwide consideration after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Brazil, citing the judicial proceedings towards his ally, which Trump known as a “witch hunt.” A lot of these taxes have since been eliminated.