Jair Bolsonaro says Israeli spray will spark ‘revolution’ in Covid-19 treatment

The Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, said today that a Israeli spray used for cancer patients will cause a “revolution” in the treatment against Covid-19, which has already infected 9.8 million Brazilians.

Israel’s Ichilov Medical Center tested 30 coronavirus patients using the EXO-CD24 nasal spray, originally used for ill with ovarian cancer. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that such treatment is “miraculous”.

“This remedy has everything to revolutionize the treatment against Covid-19Jair Bolsonaro said today, along with his son, MP Eduardo Bolsonaro. And he adds: “the survey was carried out among 30 people, 29 returned home healed, the other delayed and healed, it is true that it is a small universe of trials”. The governor and his son, dressed as a surfer, spoke today from a beach in the state of Santa Catarina, in the south of the country, where they have been meeting since last week for the carnival.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, head of the Lower House’s External Relations Commission, said: “this drug shows great promise for terminally ill patients, it is a study of over ten years“. The president corrected his son, recalling that Covid-19 appeared a little over a year ago and that the previous trials involved people with cancer. “What we are looking for is the cure with non-specific remedies“It can be prescribed ‘outside of the original bull,’ the president said.

This is not the first time that the rule uses a medicine designed for other ailments: This is what he did last year with hydroxychloroquine, a drug for patients with malaria that Bolsonaro recommends for people infected with Covid-19. Just as he was campaigning to promote hydroxychloroquine back then, the president now seems determined to disclose EXO-CD24. “We define the entourage who will go to Israel to visit the hospital (Ichilov, from Tel Aviv), to see the EXO-CD24, that if God wants it to work ”, he assured and declared to have had a telephone communication with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who has been an early ally of the government, as he traveled to Brasilia for Bolsonaro’s inauguration in January 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic, which is in its second wave, is hitting Brazil hard. According to figures released daily by the World Health Organization (WHO) up to February 16 today, 9,866,710 infected cases have been reported in Brazil, 239,895 deaths and 8,805,239 recoveries. From this Wednesday, vaccination will be suspended in Rio de Janeiro due to the lack of doses, a situation which “will be repeated in other important cities” in the short term, Carlos Lula, head of the National Council of Secretaries of Health of the 27 Brazilian states.

Secretary Lula criticized the Bolsonaro government and Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello for “not having negotiated the purchase of vaccines on time”, which can have “very serious” consequences, since the mortality curve “will continue to increase”. The recommendation of hydroxychloroquine and other non-specific drugs for Covid-19 has been criticized by Dr Lula, as well as by Jaime Santana, director of the Institute of Biology at the University of Brasilia.

ANSA