Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is being monitored for coronavirus days after meeting Donald Trump during a visit to the US, Brazilian media has reported.
The news came as it was revealed that Mr Bolsonaro’s communications secretary, who travelled to meet Mr Trump last week, had tested positive for Covid-19, the presidency's communications office said.
Mr Bolsonaro had dinner with the US president on Saturday at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where they discussed the political crisis in Venezuela.
In the statement, Brazil said it had already notified US authorities of the positive test.
Mr Trump, who posed next to Mr Wajngarten in a photo over the weekend, has said he is "not concerned" by the news Mr Bolsonaro is being monitored.
The newspaper Folha de S Paulo said the information had been revealed by Mr Wajngarten's wife Sophie, who told a WhatsApp group of mothers at her daughters’ school that her husband had received a positive test.
Brazil’s health minister said earlier today that Mr Bolsonaro would be monitored for symptoms if the communications secretary tested positive.
The Brazilian president cancelled his trip to Rio Grande do Norte state on Thursday, with Brazil’s regional development minister, Rogerio Marinho, citing “health security reasons” for the cancellation.
“The World Health Organisation's decree yesterday of a global pandemic requires us to be safe with the health of the president and the people around him,” Mr Marinho said on Twitter,
On Wednesday, Mr Wajngarten said he was well but did not deny he had been tested for coronavirus.
“Despite what the rotten media have already said about my religion, my family and my company, now they are talking about my health. But I am well,” he said.
Mr Bolsonaro had previously downplayed the threat posed by coronavirus after Brazil saw its biggest fall in stocks since 1998 earlier this week.
“During the past year, obviously, we have had moments of crisis. A lot of that is fantasy. And coronavirus, which is not all the mainstream media makes it out to be,” the president said, as he blamed the media for fuelling a crash in global oil prices.
Additional reporting by Reuters
