Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro released from hospital after two days

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has been discharged from hospital in Sao Paulo, and has addressed the press.

He had been in hospital for two days after an intestinal obstruction that forced him to cut short a holiday. On Tuesday, the medical team accompanying him ruled out the need for surgery.

President Bolsonaro, 66, has undergone four surgeries stemming from the abdominal stabbing he suffered during a 2018 campaign event.

At the time, he was operated on by Dr Antonio Luiz Macedo, who has continued to attend to him since then.

“We instruct patients to chew well, avoid some foods, and we hope to keep the president like that for the next 20, 30 years,” Dr Macedo told reporters in the hospital’s lobby before the president’s departure for the airport. He also recommended the president avoid intensive physical activity this week.

President Bolsonaro joked about the difficulty of the restrictions.

“I’ll try to follow them, but life goes on,” he said. “My whole life I was an athlete, in the armed forces, a paratrooper, diver. It’s hard to stay still.”