RIO DE JANEIRO, (AP) Brazil's President Jairbolsonaro fired a Health Ministry official following a newspaper report about his alleged involvement in a graft scheme for COVID-19 vaccines. This further strains the government's pandemic response.Bolsonaro's chief-of-staff Luiz Eduardo RAMOS signed the order to fire Roberto Dias, head, Health Ministrys logistics division, on Tuesday night and it was published in Wednesdays official gazette.Folha de S.Paulo, a newspaper, reported that Dias asked a vaccine provider for $1 per dose to increase the mark-up.Luiz Paolo Dominguetti, a Luiz Paulo Dominguetti representative, said that he approached Dias in January on behalf of Davati Medical Supply to discuss the sale of 400,000,000 AstraZeneca doses. Folha was told by Dominguetti that Dias stated that the Health Ministry would only buy the vaccines if Davati accepted the price-raising plan. Folha declined Dominguetti's offer.Dias was not immediately reachable by The Associated Press for comment. Dias did not respond to an email request for comments that was sent to his Health Ministry Email address.The Health Ministry did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Dias's dismissal.Bolsonaro's handling of COVID-19 is currently under scrutiny by a Senate committee. On Wednesday, members said that they would investigate the newspaper's reporting. This included transcripts of Dias email conversations.In the week that passed, the Brazilian leader was also accused of not paying attention to corruption in a deal to buy vaccines. This happened just weeks after Brazil had reached the milestone of 500,000 deaths from COVID-19.Luis Ricardo Miranda told the Senate that he was under pressure from the Health Ministry to approve the import of 20,000,000 Covaxin vaccines. He also pointed out irregularities in invoices, including a $45m upfront payment to a Singapore company.Bharat denied any allegations of wrongdoing in relation to vaccine supply. Bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing and knowledge of corruption and told reporters this week that he doesn't know what is happening within his ministries.The Health Ministry announced late Tuesday that it had temporarily suspended the Covaxin contract. Wagner Rosrio, Comptroller General, stated that his office would evaluate the signing process.
