Brazil’s president postpones trip to China indefinitely due to pneumonia

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has decided to postpone indefinitely an official visit to China scheduled for Sunday in order to recover from mild pneumonia, the government said today.

Lula, 77, decided to postpone his trip to China. This postponement has been communicated to the Chinese authorities, the communications secretariat said in a statement without giving a new date for the trip.

In China, Lula would mainly discuss the conflict in Ukraine with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Lula was originally scheduled to travel to China today, Saturday, but a mild case of pneumonia forced the trip, which takes nearly 20 hours by plane, to be postponed by a day on Friday.

Despite the clinical improvement, the medical service of the presidency of the Republic recommends postponing the trip to China until the end of the transmission cycle of the virus, explains Dr. Ana Elena Germolio in the press release of the presidency.

High blood pressure was what prompted Lula to undergo medical tests on Thursday evening on his return to Brasilia, according to Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, after a difficult day in Rio de Janeiro. There he specifically visited the shipyard of the Scorpène submarines, which are being built in collaboration with the French Naval Group.

The entire week of the president was filled with visits to four states of the vast Brazil. On Friday the Brazilian leader stayed at his official residence, the Alvorada Palace, in Brasilia, where he met with ministers and elected officials.

The leftist leader was to go to Beijing at the head of a large delegation of six ministers, governors, parliamentarians, senators and 240 business leaders.

China is Brazil’s number one trading partner: bilateral trade reached $150 billion last year.