Lula says World Health Day was a day of mourning, of sharing the pain of millions of Brazilians who have died from the pandemic | Photo: @LulaOfficial

Brasilia, April 9 (RHC)-- The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, blamed Jair Bolsonaro for making the country a threat to the world by the uncontrollable circulation of COVID-19 and the emergence of new mutations.

"Today is the saddest World Health Day in the hisotry of Brazil, with the country as the epicenter of the global COVID-19 pandemic," said Lula.  The former president and leader of the Worker's Party said he wanted it to be a day of celebration, in which each and every Brazilian could celebrate the conquest of the right to health and, therefore, to life.

But, he said, there is nothing to celebrate when the out-of-control pandemic has caused the deaths of almost three million people worldwide -- 330,000 of them in Brazil alone -- and continues to kill.

Lula said that unfortunately Brazil is a global danger and "this threat to the planet has a first and last name: Jair Bolsonaro... someone who systematically denies science and "pays little heed to the suffering of the people he swore to defend."

"Health professionals are forced to fight against a deadly virus and, at the same time, against the negligence of the government, which lacks everything from personal protective equipment, such as masks, to intubation drugs and oxygen," denounced Lula.

Likewise, the fundamental tools to face the virus -- mass vaccination, social distancing and the use of masks -- are criminally boycotted by the government, he emphasized.

The leader of the Latin American and Brazilian Left reaffirmed the "commitment to the defense of life... and to say loud and clear that every human being has the right to live, to have something to eat, to have a decent job, to live in a fairer world."