Brazilian President Bolsonaro hospitalized with intestinal blockage

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was taken to hospital in São Paulo on Monday with a suspected intestinal blockage, the government said in a statement.

The 66-year-old was admitted for treatment after complaining of "abdominal discomfort," the statement said.

According to the g1 news website, he was flown to the hospital from Santa Catarina, where he was holidaying on the southern coast of Brazil.

In an update late Monday citing the hospital, the government said the president was showing improvement after a nasal tube was inserted, had no fever or abdominal pain and had taken a short walk in the corridors of the hospital.

It is not yet clear if more treatment is necessary.

The right-wing populist politician was diagnosed with an intestinal blockage back in July, after which he spent several days in a São Paulo hospital.

Knife attack

This time around, Bolsonaro's doctor Antônio Luiz Macedo interrupted his own holiday in the Bahamas to return to Brazil to treat the president, g1 reported.

Macedo operated on Bolsonaro after a knife attack during the 2018 election campaign left him in a critical condition.

At the campaign event in September 2018, a mentally ill man stabbed Bolsonaro, seriously damaging his abdomen. The former army captain continued campaigning from hospital and won the presidential election a month later.

Bolsonaro has been forced to undergo several operations since he took office in early 2019, including surgery to repair his intestinal tract.