Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday criticized the country’s health regulator, Anvisa, for authorizing the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years against COVID-19, Reuters reported.
Bolsonaro said in a radio interview that he had not heard of children dying of COVID-19 and repeated his recent statement that his daughter Laura, 11, would not be vaccinated.
"Are you going to vaccinate your child when the possibility of dying is almost zero? What is behind this? What are the interests of vaccine maniacs?" he said, according to Reuters.
Bolsonaro’s comments come a day after the local Ministry of Health announced it had bought 20 million pediatric vaccines developed by Pfizer and voluntary vaccination of children 5 to 11 years old will begin by the end of the month.
Vaccination of children has been a hot topic in Brazil, where Bolsonaro's supporters have fervently opposed the measure.
The Brazilian President has repeatedly made controversial comments regarding COVID-19 and has stated his opposition to vaccinations.
Last August, he verbally attacked journalists during a public event, describing reporters as “wimps” and saying they have a heightened chance of dying of COVID-19 because they are not athletic.
Last November, Bolsonaro said that he has no intention of being vaccinated against coronavirus and also expressed skepticism over the efficacy of wearing face masks.
In another controversial statement, Bolsonaro suggested that the coronavirus pandemic could be “biological warfare” waged by China.
The Brazilian President was also hit with a fine for failure to wear a mask in violation of local pandemic restrictions.
More recently, he insinuated that questions from reporters about COVID-19 were “boring”, after Brazil passed the milestone of 600,000 COVID-19 deaths.