Brazil's Bolsonaro boasts about taking 'miraculous' hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19
After months of touting an unproven anti-malaria drug as a treatment for the new coronavirus, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is turning himself into a test case live before millions of people as he swallows hydroxychloroquine pills on social media and encourages others to do the same.
Bolsonaro said this week that he had tested positive for the disease but already felt better thanks to hydroxychloroquine. Hours later he shared a video of himself gulping down what he said was his third dose.
“I trust hydroxychloroquine,” he said, smiling. “And you?”
On Wednesday, he was again extolling the drug's benefits on Facebook, and claimed that his political opponents were rooting against it.
A string of studies in Britain and the United States, as well as by the World Health Organization, have found chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine ineffective against COVID-19 and sometimes deadly because of their adverse side effects on the heart. Several studies were canceled early because of adverse effects.
“He has become the poster boy for curing COVID with hydroxychloroquine,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia. “Chloroquine composes part of the denialist's political strategy, with the objective of convincing voters that the pandemic's effects can be easily controlled.”
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