SAO PAULO, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro underwent “a phrenic nerve block procedure” on Saturday to treat his persistent hiccups, wife Michelle Bolsonaro said on social media.
Bolsonaro, 70, was hospitalized last Wednesday for a separate hernia surgery on the following day which took place uneventfully. At the request of his defense lawyers he was authorized by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to leave prison, where he is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup.
In a statement from the hospital, he endorsed his son Flavio’s 2026 presidential bid.
The former president has faced health problems since a stabbing he suffered in September 2018, during a presidential campaign event that year in the town of Juiz de Fora, in Minas Gerais state.
Bolsonaro underwent various surgeries in the abdominal region after the stabbing.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama Writing by Ana Mano)
