Imperial Valley Press

COVID hits dozens of Latin leaders

- AP NATACHA PISARENKO

HAVANA (AP) — The COVID- 19 pandemic is sweeping through the leadership of Latin America, with two more presidents and powerful officials testing positive this week for the new coronaviru­s, adding a destabiliz­ing new element to the region’s public health and economic crises.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro, 65, announced his illness Tuesday and is using it to publicly extol hydroxychl­oroquine, the unproven malaria drug that he’s been promoting as a treatment for COVID-19, and now takes himself.

Bolivian interim President Jeanine Añez, 53, made her own diagnosis public Thursday, throwing her already troubled political propects into further doubt.

And in Venezuela, 57-yearold socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello said Thursday on Twitter that he, too, had tested positive, at least temporaril­y sidelining a largerthan-life figure considered the second-most-powerful person in the country.

Another powerful figure, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Tarek El Aissami, announced Friday he has the bug.

An Associated Press review of official statements from public officials across Latin America found at least

In this May 25, file photo, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, wearing a face mask amid the coronaviru­s pandemic, stands among supporters as he leaves his official residence of Alvorada palace in Brasilia. 49 confirmed cases of new coronaviru­s in leaders ranging from presidents to mayors of large cities, along with dozens, likely hundreds, of officials from smaller cities and towns. In most cases, high-ranking officials recovered and are back at work. But several are still struggling with the disease.

Many leaders have used their diagnoses to call on the public to heighten precaution­s like social distancing and mask wearing. But like Bolsonaro, some have drawn attention to unproven treatments with potentiall­y harmful side effects.

El Salvador’s Interior Minister, Mario Durán, was diagnosed on July 5, becoming the second Cabinet member

there to fall ill.

“I am asking you, now more than ever, to stay home and take all preventine measures,’’ he said after his diagnosis. “Protect your families.’’

Durán was receiving treatment at home on Friday.

Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández announced June 16 that he and his wife had tested positive, along with two other people who worked closely with the couple.

The following day the 51-year-old Hernández was hospitaliz­ed after doctors determined he had pneumonia. The president’s illness came as the pandemic spread from an early epicenter in the northern city of San Pedro Sula to the capital of

In this Nov. 11, 2019, file photo, then senate second Vice President and now Bolivian Interim President Jeanine Anez arrives at Congress in La Paz, Bolivia. Interim President Anez has announced on Thursday, that she has tested positive for COVID-19.

Tegucigalp­a, where cases surged.

Hernández said he had started what he called the “MAIZ treatment,” an experiment­al and unproven combinatio­n of microdacyn, azithromyc­in, ivermectin and zinc that his government is promoting as an affordable way of attacking the disease. He was released from the hospital July 2.

The revelation that Cabello – whose commanding voice resonates from Venezuelan airwaves every Wednesday on his weekly television show – has COVID-19 will likely have a sobering impact on the many people who thought their isolated country was relatively shielded from the

virus, said Luis Vicente León, a Venezuelan political analyst.

Venezuela – already largely cut off to the outside world before COVID-19 – has had far fewer registered cases than many other countries in Latin America, though in recent weeks the number of new confirmed infections has been steadily increasing.

Cabello said he was in isolation while getting treatment. A day earlier, he’d canceled his regular TV appearance, telling followers he was battling “strong allergies.”

No informatio­n has been released on whether Cabello is hospitaliz­ed or what type of medical care he is receiving. Venezuela is considered one of the least prepared countries in the world to confront the pandemic. Hospitals are routinely short on basic supplies like water, electricit­y and medicine.

“I think this shows Venezuela is on the same route all the other countries,” León said.

In the Caribbean, Luis Abinader, the newly elected president of the Dominican Republic, contracted and recovered from COVID-19 during his campaign.

Like Bolsonaro, many Latin leaders have kept up a schedule of public appearance­s even as the region has become one of the hardest-hit in the world.

That poses a growing risk to governance in the region, said Felicia Knaul, a professor of medicine who directs the Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas at the University of Miami.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei placed his entire Cabinet and their staff in quarantine Thursday after one of his ministers tested positive.

In Bolivia, officials said the interim president Añez, had not been been displaying symptoms and was in good spirits in her official residence on Friday.

At least six other Bolivian ministers and vice ministers have been infected, and at least eight staff members.

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