RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil’s Health Ministry will issue new guidelines on Wednesday expanding the recommended use of chloroquine for treating the novel coronavirus, President Jair Bolsonaro said, days after the health minister quit under pressure to sign the new guidelines.

Interim Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, an active duty army general, will sign the new protocol and stay in the top job for now, the president said in an online interview on Tuesday evening.

Bolsonaro said he kept a box of the anti-malarial drug in case his 93-year-old mother needed it, noting U.S. President Donald Trump said he was taking it preventively.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Brad Haynes and Sandra Maler)

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