To sum up the 300-plus days of the Eduardo Pazuello era in Brazil’s Health Ministry, one needs to look no further than a quote of his from October 22 last year. “Gentlemen, it’s simple: one gives the orders, the other follows them.” After being publicly scorned by President Jair Bolsonaro for committing the mortal sin of trying to secure more vaccines for the country’s nationwide campaign, that is how the Army general-turned-cabinet minister described his subservient role in the government.
As a loyal soldier, Mr. Pazuello followed his commander-in-chief by pushing antimalarial drug chloroquine to local health officials — despite no proven evidence of its efficacy against the coronavirus — minimizing the need for social distancing measures, failing to respond to calls for help from states running out of oxygen, and doing the bare minimum to procure Covid-19 vaccines.
Indeed, it was this blind obedience that earned him the Health Minister job in the first place — and kept him in office for ten months. His two predecessors — both physicians — did not last nearly as long, as they refused to abide by the president’s unscientific beliefs.
That’s why Mr. Pazuello was the perfect man for the job, despite claiming that he knew nothing about the country’s public health system.
Created by the 1988 Constitution, Brazil’s Universal Healthcare System (SUS) treats more than 70 percent of the Brazilian population, administers 98 percent of all the vaccines in the country, and operates the world’s largest public program for organ transplants.
Allegedly an Army logistics expert, Mr. Pazuello oversaw his fair share of logistics gaffes, such as letting a batch of 6.8 million coronavirus tests spoil in a government warehouse. Indeed, many critics believe the...
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