Paraguay: Health Minister Resigns To Avoid Further Scandal

Paraguay's Health Minister Julio Mazzoleni on Friday handed over his resignation letter amid the country's pressing health emergency due to the increase in COVID-19 contagions and the lack of medicines.

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Mazzoleni noted that the decision was taken in consensus with Paraguay's President Mario Abdo Benitez to ease political tensions over the handling of the pandemic.

The move comes just one day after the Senate approved a declaration demanding Mazzoleni, Health Vice-Minister Julio Borba, and Health Surveillance Director Guillermo Sequera to resign.

Criticisms against Mazzoleni's response to the epidemiological emergency grew high over the last months as health care workers took to the streets in Asuncion to demand medicines to assist COVID-19 patients.

Borba will interim in the position until the nomination of a new minister. The Physicians National Union Secretary Rosana Gonzalez advocated for nominating a medical professional who is not a politician.

"We have fears about who will be the new minister because we do not want to hear that because he is new in the post he will be given time to understand the current crisis," Gonzalez said.

The delay in the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines has also triggered demonstrations in the South American nation. President Benitez, however, informed that one million Sputnik V doses will arrive in "the coming months."