Brazil's President Apparently Can't Stop Hiccuping

Jair Bolsonaro hospitalized after abdominal pain, 10-day bout of hiccups
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2021 10:40 AM CDT
Brazil's President Hospitalized With Hiccups
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro attends a ceremony in Brasilia, Brazil, on Tuesday.   (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Brazil's president has been admitted to the hospital with a strange bout of hiccups, so far lasting more than 10 days, per the Guardian. Jair Bolsonaro was taken to a military hospital in the capital city of Brasilia around 4am local time on Wednesday when the hiccups failed to clear and he developed abdominal pain, according to reports. The 66-year-old recently blamed enduring hiccups on medication prescribed to him following a June 3 dental procedure, per the Guardian. Concerns about the president's health grew this week as videos showed him struggling to speak through burps or hiccups. Local newspaper Correio Braziliense reported that he had to leave a dinner with businessmen in southern Brazil on Friday because he felt ill.

The presidential palace said the president was doing well Wednesday but would be under observation for 24 to 48 hours, per Bloomberg. One journalist claimed Bolsonaro was suffering from an intestinal blockage, while local newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported that the surgeon who operated on Bolsonaro after his 2018 stabbing was en route to the hospital. A man stabbed Bolsonaro in the abdomen in the lead-up to the 2018 presidential election, piercing his intestine and causing him to lose 40% of his blood, per the Independent. He's undergone several abdomen surgeries since then, and in April he said he would undergo a procedure to treat a hernia at the site of the operations, per Bloomberg. (One man's five-day bout of hiccups was blamed on a tumor.)

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