Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha announced on Sept. 19, that because of the U.S. “unfounded and arbitrary limitations on Brazilian diplomatic activity,” he will not participate in meetings of the UN General Assembly. The State Department had refused to grant Padilha a visa at all until Brazil protested to the United Nations of this U.S. violation of its Headquarters Agreement with the United Nations. It then issued a restricted visa for Padilha of the same kind imposed on Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, considered enemy nations, under which he would be prohibited to travel anywhere outside the five blocks from his hotel to the UN headquarters in New York City.
Brazil’s Health Ministry charged that the United States’s aim was to keep Minister Padilha from attending the leadership meeting of the Pan American Health Organization scheduled at PAHO’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. after the UNGA—with the intent to silence Brazil’s leadership role in vaccine policy. “The decision violates … Brazil’s right to present its proposals at the most important global health forum for the Americas,” in order to exclude Brazil because it is a leader of “global public health and one of the main coordinators of actions aimed at defending vaccines, science, and life,” the Ministry statement specified.
“This is not a measure of retaliation against the Minister, but against what Brazil represents in the fight against denialism, which takes away children’s right to be vaccinated and guides the setbacks related to health that the American population faces,” it charged, reporting that Brazil was to announce new financial support for PAHO’s rotating fund for the purchase of vaccines and cancer drugs, “which would be cheaper here in Brazil and throughout the Americas.”
