Government programs in Brazil's October 2026 presidential race, from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) to Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL), promise to use artificial intelligence in the SUS, the country's universal public health system, to order queues for appointments, exams and surgery by clinical risk and to support diagnoses. A joint report by g1 and BBC News Brasil shows the plans run into practical obstacles: the system handles about 2.8 billion patient visits a year, there is no consolidated national count of how many people are waiting in line, and much of the available data was created for billing rather than clinical use.What the plans promiseThe proposals are similar in essence and, according to the report, light on detail. Flávio Bolsonaro's program promises AI to speed up the scheduling of appointments and exams and to support prevention: "The system will be able to identify who runs a greater risk of falling ill and call that person in to get care in time, instead of waiting for them to arrive at the emergency room when it is already serious." Lula's plan calls for improving the "regulation of access to specialized care", with more transparency in queues and AI "with a single digital queue ordered by clinical risk". Renan Santos of the Missão party proposes replacing the chronological queue and cites the DoctorSV platform created by the government of El Salvador.What is settled and what is still uncertainAmong researchers, AI in health care is seen as a likely path. "The factors that lead a person to have a serious health problem, or even to die, are usually complex interactions, and that is exactly what these algorithms do so well," said Alexandre Chiavegatto Filho, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of São Paulo's School of Public Health who coordinates its Big Data and Predictive Analysis Laboratory. One use he finds promising is extending access to specialists in regions where they are scarce; his laboratory develops algorithms trained on data from Brazilian patients.The central application of the campaign promises, reordering queues, is more uncertain. Wagner Meira Jr., a professor in the computer science department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and a researcher at its Center for Innovation in Artificial Intelligence for Health, called some of the proposals futuristic. "They are hardly achieved within four years of government," he said. In his assessment, AI already performs better in contained, well-defined tasks such as analyzing exams: the more delimited the task, the greater the success. He also points to an obvious limit, prioritizing patients does not create new appointment slots."To improve the queue, before anything else you have to increase the number of people serving the queue. Then you think about how to prioritize it. If you simply change people's positions and keep the same capacity constraint, it will not improve much." (Wagner Meira Jr., UFMG)Another obstacle is the data itself. According to Meira Jr., much of the information in the SUS consists of administrative records created to pay service providers. "These data are very rich. But they are very limited for this whole range of scenarios," he said. The Health Ministry confirmed to the reporters that there is still no consolidated national figure for people waiting in the SUS, because queues for surgeries, appointments and exams are managed by states and municipalities, which until recently were not required to send that information to the federal government. A 2025 ministerial order now requires periodic, standardized submission of those records to the National Health Data Network (RNDS), but the measure is still being implemented. The only source available today is Sisreg, a scheduling and regulation system that not all municipalities use.For readers, two practical points. First, the queue you are waiting in is managed by your state and your city, not Brasília; questions about your place in line for appointments, exams or surgery should go to the municipal or state health department. Second, when judging promises of AI in health care, check whether they come with measures to expand capacity, such as hiring staff and adding services, and with investment in quality clinical data. According to the researchers interviewed, without that the only thing that changes is the order of the line.

Brazil's Ministry of Health formally asked on Thursday (Sept 24) for Conitec to evaluate adding weight-loss injections based on semaglutide and liraglutide, the so-called GLP-1 pens, to the country's public health system. According to columnist Mônica Bergamo of Folha de S.Paulo, health minister Alexandre Padilha sent a formal request to the commission so the offer of these drugs to patients with obesity can be assessed. News site G1 confirmed the filing.What is confirmed so far is only that the review has started. Conitec, the national commission that advises the ministry on which medicines and procedures the public system should fund, is the first of several steps. After its technical opinion, the case still goes through a public consultation before a final decision. There is no set deadline, and approval is not guaranteed.Why the request came nowTwo factors changed compared with earlier reviews, according to the ministry itself. Semaglutide and liraglutide have lost patent protection, and 25 pen formulations are now registered in Brazil, 14 of them approved in 2026, including domestically produced versions and generics. New brands have also cut prices by roughly 70% in less than a year. Earlier Conitec assessments had pointed to a cost impact in the billions of reais over five years, depending on how many patients were included and how long treatment lasted.The SUS, Brazil's universal public health system, currently provides no obesity medication on a broad basis. The only program is a pilot started in June in Porto Alegre, in the south of the country, which follows about 250 patients with severe obesity or an indication for bariatric surgery. Last week, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the pens would be made available through the public system, while noting that technical steps remained.The potential demand is large. Ministry data show the share of Brazilian adults with obesity rose from 11.8% in 2006 to 25.7% in 2024. Even if Conitec issues a favorable recommendation, getting the drugs to patients would still require defining who qualifies, under what conditions, and where the funding would come from.In practice, nothing changes immediately for public system users: the pens remain available only on the private market, and the Porto Alegre pilot covers a limited group that is already set. The public consultation that follows the Conitec report will be open to anyone who wants to comment before the final decision. People living with obesity should keep regular follow-up at their health services, since the criteria for any public access have not been defined yet.

The lawyer Marcelo Bessa, of the firm Ávila de Bessa, left the legal team of former president Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday (Sept. 24) in the coup plot case before Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF). His exit came hours after the team filed, and then withdrew, a request to suspend the execution of Bolsonaro's 27-year, three-month prison sentence.What is documented so far is this: the suspension request was filed with Justice Nunes Marques as part of a revisão criminal, a post-conviction review that seeks to annul the verdict. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the defense pulled back in less than three hours. In its withdrawal petition, the team asked the justice to ratify the retreat and said the review should proceed "regularly", with the original arguments and requests intact, G1 reports. Only the suspension request was dropped.Official note calls it a strategy reviewRight after the retreat, the defense issued a note announcing Bessa's departure and saying the case will now be handled only by the lawyers who acted in the criminal trial. Contacted by TV Globo, the team said the withdrawal is a "reassessment of the strategy". The full note, published by Folha, reads:"This is a reassessment of the defense's strategy. From this moment on, the case will be handled entirely by the lawyers who acted in the defense during the criminal proceedings. For this reason, it was understood to be more appropriate to withdraw the injunction request, so that colleagues can assess the measures they intend to adopt. The Ávila de Bessa firm will no longer act in the case."The internal reason for the reversal is not in the note. According to reporting by Folha, the withdrawal followed disagreements among the lawyers representing Bolsonaro in cases before the court, though details of the dispute were not disclosed. Bessa is a lawyer for the PL, Bolsonaro's party. He previously worked on the defenses of Bolsonaro and party president Valdemar Costa Neto, and served in the legal team of the presidential campaign of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son.The case and the argument withdrawnBolsonaro was convicted in September 2025 by the First Chamber, a panel of the Supreme Court, for leading an attempted coup d'état, and began serving his sentence in November. In March, on health grounds, he was moved to house arrest under court-imposed restrictions. In the withdrawn request, the defense argued the trial should have taken place before the court's full bench of ten justices, because the acts attributed to Bolsonaro were allegedly committed while he held the presidency. "Unduly suppressed liberty cannot be restored", the lawyers wrote. During the trial, the First Chamber had already examined and rejected requests from the defenses for the case to be heard by the full bench, according to G1.In practical terms, nothing changed in the execution of the sentence: the conviction stands and Bolsonaro remains under house arrest. The revisão criminal is still pending before the STF, now led by the trial lawyers. Readers can follow the case through the Supreme Court's official docket, where Justice Nunes Marques's rulings are published. Any claim that Bolsonaro has been released, or that his sentence was suspended, is only confirmed by a published decision of the court.

Brazil's Ministry of Health has set aside R$ 3.9 billion in the 2027 federal budget to overhaul the purchase of cancer medicines in the SUS, the country's public health system. According to a report by Folha de S.Paulo published on Monday (21), picked up by news site Brasil 247, the goal is to deliver at least 23 new drugs for breast and lung cancer, multiple myeloma and other tumors, offering a newer generation of medicines that target more specific stages and variations of the disease. The ministry estimates more than 110,000 patients could benefit.The problem the government wants to fix is an old one: high-cost treatments approved for the public network often never reach patients, because federal transfers fall short of what states and hospitals need to close contracts with manufacturers. The response is a policy named AF-Onco (the Pharmaceutical Care Component in Oncology), whose regulation began at the end of 2025. Under it, the ministry is to buy the most expensive medicines directly instead of only reimbursing state health departments, and the federal government is to negotiate national prices with the industry for products that states keep buying and the federal government refunds.What the list includesAmong the promised drugs are extremely expensive ones such as betadinutuximabe, used for neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive tumor that mainly affects children. It was approved for the SUS in November 2025 at an estimated cost of up to R$ 635,000 per treatment, but supply has not been regularized: today patients get it only through court orders. The package also covers medicines whose protocols were approved years ago and never delivered, such as gefitinib, which since 2013 was supposed to serve lung cancer patients.What is confirmed so farOn the confirmed side: the R$ 3.9 billion is reserved in the 2027 budget, which still needs congressional approval, and the AF-Onco regulation started last year. On the promise side: there is no firm date for the deliveries. Folha recorded estimates swinging between October, the end of the year and early 2027, and the 110,000-patient figure remains a ministry projection."People have cancer today, there is a need for speed," said Helena Esteves, advocacy manager at Oncoguia, a Brazilian patient support organization. She called the program "the materialization of what we had been shouting about for ten years," while saying the sector is anxious about the slow pace of delivery.For patients and families, the practical route remains the referral oncology service. Drugs incorporated into the SUS are listed publicly by the ministry, and denial of an approved treatment can be challenged with the SUS ombudsman (phone 136) and, as a last resort, in court, the route that today secures access to approved but undelivered drugs such as betadinutuximabe.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has 40% of voter intentions in a first-round simulation for Brazil's 2026 presidential election, against 37% for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, according to the Nexus/BTG poll released on Monday (21). With a margin of error of two percentage points, the three-point gap counts as a technical tie. Writer Augusto Cury ranks third with 6%.The survey was commissioned by Banco BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment bank, and polled 2,006 voters nationwide by phone between Friday (18) and Sunday (20). The margin of error is two percentage points in either direction, with a 95% confidence level, CNN Brasil reports. The poll is registered with the TSE, Brazil's top electoral court, under code BR-00485/2026.First round: a stable raceBehind Cury come Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) with 5% and Renan Santos (Missão) with 3%. Former Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema (Novo) and Samara Martins (UP) have 1% each, and the remaining presidential candidates scored zero. Blank, null or no-candidate answers totaled 4%, while 2% were undecided or gave no answer.Compared with the previous wave, Lula slipped from 42% to 40% while Flávio held at 37%, a shift within the margin of error. Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted and jailed for attempting a coup, as Folha de S.Paulo notes. Leonardo Avalanche, announced by the PRTB on Tuesday (15) to replace Pablo Marçal, whose candidacy the TSE rejected unanimously, did not register in the poll.Runoff and other matchupsIn a potential runoff between the two leaders, Lula has 46% and Flávio 45%, a technical tie like the previous week's 47% to 46%. The poll also tested other matchups, according to bahia.ba: Lula ties Caiado at 45% to 45% and edges Cury 44% to 43%, both within the margin, and leads Zema 47% to 41% and Renan Santos 47% to 39%, gaps beyond the margin of error.What the data confirm is a snapshot of voter intentions between September 18 and 20: the two front-runners technically tied in both rounds, with weekly movement inside the margin of error. What they cannot show is the election outcome, with the first round about two weeks away. To follow polls responsibly, readers can check this survey's registration in the TSE electoral research portal using code BR-00485/2026, compare weekly waves rather than a single reading, and treat any gap of two points or less as a tie, which this poll cannot distinguish.

Civil police in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, are investigating a suspected scheme of counterfeit cancer medicines combined with fraud in court-ordered drug purchases that reached at least 39 cancer patients, according to investigators. Seven of the people who received the medicines died during treatment, and the police have not established a link between the deaths and the drugs. The case was laid out by Globo's weekly newsmagazine Fantástico on Sunday. The first raids came on June 29, when Operation Placebo served dozens of search warrants and arrested a pharmaceutical distributor in flagrante delicto.What is confirmed so far is narrower than the initial suspicion, and investigators have been careful to separate the two. According to the lead detective, Daniel Severo, the inquiry focuses on 39 treatments obtained through lawsuits filed by private lawyers, and so far only one case of a delivered adulterated medicine has been identified. The first warning came from the Santa Casa de Caridade hospital in São Gabriel, in the state's interior, where the pharmacist in charge of preparing oncology medicines noticed inconsistencies in a batch of a breast cancer drug: misspellings on the packaging, odd coloring and texture, and a leaflet in a foreign language. The manufacturer examined a sample, did not recognize the batch as legitimate, and distribution was suspended immediately.How the scheme allegedly workedIn the police account, the group combined an oncologist, lawyers and business owners. The doctor, named as Fernando Borges da Silva, of Santa Maria, prescribed medicines not supplied by the SUS, Brazil's public health system, and referred patients to lawyers who sued the state to fund the purchases. Under Rio Grande do Sul rules, the patient, through the lawyer, must gather three price quotes. Nearly all the pharmacies submitting those quotes belonged to or were tied to businessman Lisandro Henriques Hermes, arrested during the operation and described by police as the group's main organizer, who allegedly used front partners to control the companies. At his home, officers seized boxes of medicines and blister packs with no identification. One drug cited by police is Enhertu, a real, high-cost breast cancer medicine."The evidence gathered points to an organized structure that, in theory, turned the judicialization of health care into a mechanism for illicit profit. The suspected sale of adulterated or counterfeit medicines makes the facts even more serious, because it goes beyond property damage and directly affects the health and lives of patients," detective Daniel Severo told G1.Among the cases reported by Fantástico is Maria Jupira, who was being treated for lung cancer. Her court-obtained medicine was part of the suspect batch and was seized; her family says she went two months without proper treatment before receiving other medicines, and she died at 57. Her family does not know whether she took any counterfeit medicine. Another patient, Mara Rodrigues, waited about eight months for a new appointment after losing contact with the doctor and only received new medicines in late August. In Cascavel, in the state of Paraná, a pharmacy linked to the group won the bid to buy medicines for Yasmin, a 12-year-old girl with neuroblastoma. According to the investigation, about 2.5 million reais transferred by the state government were diverted and only part of the medicine was delivered. The girl died in February.In a statement, the Santa Casa hospital said it suspended the doctor as soon as it learned of the investigation, that the hospital is not a target of the operation and that it is cooperating. The state medical council, Cremers, said it would open an inquiry once it receives official notice of the facts. Operation Placebo executed 57 search warrants and one arrest warrant in 11 cities of Rio Grande do Sul, according to G1, plus actions in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Goiás, targeting 15 people and 14 companies; the Fantástico report counted 56 search warrants. Courts also blocked about 2.5 million reais in assets of the suspects in Rio Grande do Sul. Hermes denies any wrongdoing, says he has no ties to the lawyers or the doctor and knows nothing of any counterfeiting. He and a partner have already been convicted of fraud by a court in Paraná.Guidance for patients in treatmentFor patients, the central message from authorities is not to interrupt treatment. At a news conference on June 30, detective Severo said there is no evidence of indiscriminate distribution of counterfeit medicines in oncology and that patients served through official SUS channels or through lawsuits filed by the public defender's office have no reason to distrust their medication. He warned that interrupting cancer treatment can bring unpredictable and irreversible consequences. The state health department asked oncology units to immediately tighten oversight of medicines. In practice: keep appointments and doses on schedule; check the packaging, including the spelling on the label and the languages of the box and leaflet; and take any inconsistency to the hospital pharmacy team or the local health surveillance authority before using or discarding the product.

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) suspended all campaign activity and the release of public funds to Deltan Dallagnol of the Novo party, a Senate candidate in Parana, in a preliminary ruling issued on Saturday (19). The injunction came from Justice Floriano de Azevedo Marques, who asked the court's presidency to schedule the case for judgment by the full bench, virtual or in person, within days, according to G1.The order answers an appeal from the Parana Para Todos coalition and the Brasil da Esperanca federation, the bloc led by the Workers' Party (PT), against a Parana regional electoral court ruling that had cleared Dallagnol's candidacy about ten days earlier, as Estadao reported. Until the full court decides, he is barred from using public money, from free campaign advertising on radio and television, and from campaign events, including debates.The justice's reasoningMarques based the injunction on a 2022 unanimous TSE ruling that Dallagnol's resignation as a federal prosecutor was a fraud on the law, aimed at preventing 15 administrative proceedings pending against him at the National Council of the Public Prosecutor's Office (CNMP) from becoming disciplinary cases that could result in dismissal or compulsory retirement. Those proceedings were later archived, but in the justice's view that happened because Dallagnol had left the prosecutor's office, not because he had been acquitted."At the time of the resignation, all these proceedings were under review, with no element indicating that a favorable or acquitting decision for the candidate would be issued. On the contrary, the expectation at the time was that penalties of dismissal or compulsory retirement would be effectively applied," Marques wrote.Dallagnol was the coordinator of the Lava Jato task force in Curitiba, the team of federal prosecutors behind the sweeping corruption investigation that reshaped Brazilian politics in the 2010s. In the justice's assessment, a resignation timed to avoid the disciplinary cases would have left him ineligible.What is settled and what can still changeWhat is confirmed: the campaign is suspended and public money is blocked for as long as the injunction stands. What is provisional: the case now goes to the seven justices of the full TSE, who will rule on the candidacy itself. Some outlets, including Estadao and UOL, described Saturday's measure as a suspension of the candidacy; the immediate effect reported by G1 is the halt of campaign acts and funding.For voters in Parana, the practical point is to follow the full court's ruling, promised within days and coming about two weeks before the first round of Brazil's national elections. The injunction can be upheld or reversed by the justices, and the shape of the Senate race in the state can still change before election day.

Brazil's Ministry of Health announced on Thursday (Sept. 17) that injectable GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs, popularly known as "weight-loss pens", will be distributed free of charge through the SUS, the country's universal public health system, to patients with obesity. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Health Minister Alexandre Padilha made the announcement during a visit to Eurofarma's industrial complex in Montes Claros, in the state of Minas Gerais. The offer will require a doctor's prescription and a clinical protocol that is still being drafted, and the government gave no start date.Padilha said the focus will be on patients with the most to gain: people with severe obesity, with related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, or with an indication for bariatric surgery. "This little pen will be used to treat people with obesity for free, when a doctor determines that a man or a woman has a health problem", Lula said, according to the magazine Veja. The minister said the drug will not enter the public system as an "aesthetic miracle".First data from the public systemThe decision rests on a study called Real-Bari, designed by the ministry with the technical team of the Grupo Hospitalar Conceição, a public hospital network in Porto Alegre. It will follow 250 patients with severe obesity or obesity combined with other conditions, selected since June, according to news agency Agência Brasil. Researchers want to know whether semaglutide, one of the active ingredients of the pens, can control obesity enough to make bariatric surgery unnecessary, and they are also measuring effects on heart problems and on the risk of breast cancer recurrence.Padilha cited the study's first patient, who was on the bariatric surgery waiting list, lost 6 kilograms and reported lifestyle changes, including exercise. That is a single-case result. In a statement, the ministry called the first observations "positive", but no aggregate results have been released so far, and the clinical protocol that will set the rules for use in the SUS is not finished.Prices and domestic productionPadilha linked the plan to falling prices in the private market and to domestic production. "Brazil is today the country with the greatest diversity of medicines registered to fight obesity, the so-called weight-loss pens. We already have 14 products registered. And that brought prices down for the population", he said."What used to cost R$ 1,700, R$ 2,000, is now between R$ 300 and R$ 400 at the pharmacy, increasing access. That already helps a lot of people. But we want something else: to make this medication available in the SUS as a right."According to the minister, the effort began after a World Health Organization report advised countries to assess access to this class of drugs. With the semaglutide patent expiring in 2026, the ministry and the drug regulator Anvisa opened a call for companies to produce the pens in Brazil. Eurofarma, the plant Lula visited, makes Poviztra, a semaglutide developed with Denmark's Novo Nordisk and sold since October 2025 for R$ 400 to R$ 1,100 in the private market, according to Veja.For patients, nothing changes immediately. Access through the public system remains limited to study participants in Porto Alegre, and there is no date for general distribution. The ministry's guidance is that treatment should only happen with a prescription and medical follow-up, under the criteria to be defined in the clinical protocol.

For the first time in the 2026 series of DataTempo polls, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the PL party is numerically ahead of President Lula of the Workers' Party in a hypothetical presidential runoff among voters in Minas Gerais, Brazil's second-largest electorate. The fourth round of the survey, released on Friday, September 18, by the newspaper O Tempo, puts the senator at 43% against 41.9% for Lula. The 1.1-point gap sits inside the margin of error of 3.1 points in either direction, which makes the result a statistical tie. Interviews were conducted between September 9 and 12. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, is a senator for Rio de Janeiro and a leading opposition candidate in the October election.In the simulated first round, Lula still leads numerically with 35.6% against 31.2% for Flávio, also a technical tie. The clearest trend in the series is the narrowing gap: in August the president had 36% and the senator 28%, so the distance fell from 8.0 to 4.4 points in about a month. In the runoff simulation published in August, Lula had 42.4% against 40.9%.Why the numbers may have shiftedMariela Rocha, a political scientist and senior research analyst at the institute, offers one hypothesis: the start of campaign advertising. She notes the poll does not ask voters why they intend to vote as they do, so the explanation remains preliminary."Between August and September we entered a phase of greater exposure for the candidacies, with electoral advertising and a succession of political events that can influence how voters form their opinions and preferences. The movement observed in the poll is compatible with this process of the race becoming more defined."In the spontaneous scenario, with no list of names, Lula gets 30.5% of mentions and Flávio 24.4%, with slight overlap between their intervals. Undecided voters remain a large group: 25.6% named no candidate. Among the trailing names, psychiatrist Augusto Cury rose to 6.8% while former Minas governor Romeu Zema fell to 3.9%; in August the figures were 0.9% and 9.8%. The report cautions against reading too much into that swing, since the confidence intervals of the two rounds still overlap. "Cury may be benefiting from a phase of greater exposure and knowledge of his candidacy, while Zema loses ground in this segment of the race in Minas Gerais," Rocha said.Methodology and limitsThe survey was commissioned by Sempre Editora, the parent company of O Tempo, and consisted of 1,000 face-to-face household interviews. The confidence level is 95% and the poll is registered with Brazil's electoral authorities as MG-00468/2026 and BR-02329/2026. Two limits deserve attention. The sample covers only Minas Gerais, not the whole country. And the confirmed finding is the set of percentages; the explanation about campaign effects is an analyst's hypothesis, raised outside the questionnaire.For readers tracking polls in the final weeks of the race, three checks help: confirm the registration number with the electoral court, see whether the gap between candidates exceeds the margin of error, and check the field dates, since a poll is a snapshot of that moment. The first round is in October. Brazilians who have not confirmed their voter registration can do so free of charge on the website of the Superior Electoral Court, the TSE.

The prosecution office attached to Brazil's federal accounts court, the TCU, has asked for the immediate suspension of the decree that raised the Bolsa Família stipend by about 15%, announced by the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday (17). According to CNN Brasil, the filing came from deputy attorney general Lucas Rocha Furtado, who questions whether there is budget provision for the increase and asks the court to investigate possible irregularities. Nothing has been suspended so far: the raise stands, and payments at the new values are scheduled to start on October 1. The Bolsa Família is Brazil's main cash transfer program.In the filing, Furtado says the decree includes no estimate of its financial impact, names no funding source and shows no compatibility with the 2026 annual budget law or the budget guidelines law. In his reading, the measure may have breached Brazil's Fiscal Responsibility Law, which requires an estimate of the budgetary and financial impact and proof of compatibility with the annual budget, the multi-year plan and the guidelines law. He also argues that the president overstepped his regulatory powers, because the decree, in his words, "inova na ordem jurídica, criando obrigações financeiras novas e ampliando despesas sem lastro legal específico" (creates new financial obligations and expands spending without a specific legal basis).Furtado asked the TCU to summon Lula and the ministers who signed the decree to present justifications within 15 days and show that budget allocations and an impact estimate exist. He also requested that the federal budget secretariat and the national treasury report whether specific funds are available. The core request is an injunction that would suspend the decree's effects starting with the October payments.The argument for urgency is the calendar. Because the raised payments begin on October 1, executing the expense could cause damage to the public purse that would be hard or impossible to reverse, given the difficulty of recovering money already paid to beneficiaries, according to the filing. It also questions the timing: issuing the decree in September, weeks before the presidential election, "suscita fundado receio de desvio de finalidade político-eleitoral" (raises a well-founded suspicion of political-electoral misuse of purpose). As of Friday (18), the request was still awaiting a TCU decision, with no deadline announced.The numbersThe decree raised the values in line with the accumulated INPC consumer price index between March 2023 and August 2026. The floor per household went from 600 to 691 reais, and the average payment from 675 to 777 reais. The early childhood benefit rose to 173 reais per child up to age 7, and the citizenship income benefit to 164 reais per family member. The program had last been raised in March 2023. According to the Ministry of Planning and Budget, the additional cost is 5.8 billion reais in 2026, covered by reallocating funds expected to go unspent this year, mostly from social security. For 2027, government estimates cited by CNN Brasil range from 22 billion to 22.7 billion reais, and the budget bill sent to Congress will have to be adjusted. The program reaches more than 19 million households, about 50 million people, nearly a quarter of Brazil's population, according to G1.The government's defense and other legal frontsThe government says the measure respects the law. The Attorney General's Office (AGU) reviewed the decree beforehand and found no legal impediment: in its reading, the decree updates the values of an existing public policy under authorization in the Bolsa Família's own legislation, without creating a new benefit or changing eligibility rules. According to UOL Economia, Dario Durigan, of the Finance Ministry, said the increase is compatible with fiscal responsibility.The TCU filing adds to disputes in the electoral courts. Justice André Mendonça of the Superior Electoral Court rejected a suit against the raise by lawmaker Zé Trovão for lack of standing, without ruling on the merits, and was later assigned to report a separate case filed by presidential candidate Renan Santos of the Missão party, who calls the increase illegal, unconstitutional and election-minded. The context is electoral: the announcement came 17 days before the first round, and a Datafolha poll released on Friday (18) showed Lula with 39% of voting intentions against 36% for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a technical tie within the two-point margin of error.For beneficiaries, the situation as of Friday (18) is this: the raise is in effect, it enters payments from October 1, and no court decision has suspended the benefit. If the TCU grants the injunction, the change will be announced through official channels before any calendar shift. The next markers to watch are the court's ruling on the injunction, the 15-day window for the government to justify its budget allocation, and the progress of the cases before the electoral court.

About 43.8 million Brazilians, or 27% of the adult population, had already bet on online gambling platforms by the end of August, according to data from Brazil's Ministry of Finance. The figures come from Sigap, the government system that tracks all legal bets, and were reported on Friday by Folha de S.Paulo after a freedom-of-information request filed by the news site BNL Data. Brazil began licensing these platforms, known locally as bets, in 2025. In eight months, the total rose 75.2% from the 25 million recorded at the end of 2025.The count includes anyone who has bet at least once, a distinction that matters when reading the numbers. Active bettors, those who deposit money each month, actually fell 7.6% in the first half of the year, to an average of 8.5 million a month, from 9.2 million in 2025. Part of the drop reflects restrictions already in place. According to the ministry, 5 million people are now blocked from the platforms: 3 million beneficiaries of social programs such as Bolsa Familia, 474,000 enrolled in the federal debt renegotiation program known as Desenrola Brasil, and 854,000 who asked to self-exclude.Fewer deposits, higher house takeRevenue at government-licensed platforms rose 5.9% in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier, even as deposits fell from R$ 99.2 billion to R$ 88.5 billion. Bettors' net losses, the gap between what they deposited and what they got back in prizes, totaled R$ 20.2 billion between January and June, against R$ 19.1 billion a year before. By Folha's calculation, house revenue came to 22.8% of deposits, above the 15% maximum retention set by law and the 7% rate the industry itself advertises. Under current rules, 88% of gross gaming revenue stays with the companies and 12% goes to the federal government and beneficiary entities, a share that rises to 13% this year and 15% in 2028.Bettors are mostly men, who account for 68.84%, against 31.16% for women. The largest age bracket, at 29.07%, is 31 to 40 years old. Activity tracks the football calendar. The yearly peak came in January, with 10.2 million monthly depositors, as state championships began; the low was April, with 7.2 million, shortly before the launch of the expanded Desenrola Brasil; and demand rose again in June, when the World Cup started. "The number of transactions went up, but the amount deposited per person did not rise significantly," Leonardo Baptista, CEO of Pay4Fun, a payments company that serves the industry, told Folha about the tournament period.Government weighs restrictionsAt a press conference on Thursday, Finance Minister Dario Durigan said government discussions about possible restrictions on platforms and online games, such as the crash games tigrinho and Aviator, are guided by the impact of betting on household budgets. "We remain very concerned about the cost of living and about preserving the income of Brazilian families," he said.Two caveats are worth noting. The data cover only the 85 companies licensed by the government and two more operating under court order, and do not measure illegal gambling. And the 43.8 million figure counts everyone who has ever bet, not those betting today. For readers who want to cut back or stop, there is a formal route: requesting self-exclusion directly from the platforms, already used by 854,000 people, alongside the automatic blocks that apply to social program beneficiaries and Desenrola Brasil enrollees. Over the half-year, operators kept more than they paid out in prizes, and the money wagered comes from the same income that pays a household's bills.

Caixa Econômica Federal, Brazil's state-owned bank, tabled a new offer for Saúde Caixa, its employees' health plan, in the early hours of Thursday (17). The plan is the main sticking point in a nationwide strike that began on September 10. Staff will vote on the deal in electronic assemblies on Monday (21), from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Until then, the strike continues.What the offer saysAccording to the Contraf-CUT union federation and the employees' executive commission (CEE), the central change is the ceiling on the bank's share of the plan's funding, which rises from 6.5% to 9% of payroll from 2027. For 2026 there will be no increase in monthly premiums and the bank will absorb the plan's deficit. From 2027, plan holders will contribute 3.7% of base pay, capped at 9% for the family group (holder plus direct dependents). Monthly fees will be R$ 560 for direct dependents, R$ 660 for indirect dependents aged 21 to 24 and R$ 900 for children aged 24 to 27 and surviving parents, as reported by G1.The offer keeps the plan's solidarity model, with no differentiated charges by age bracket (the so-called intergenerational pact), and keeps Saúde Caixa inside the collective bargaining agreement. The charge per urgent care consultation drops from R$ 150 to R$ 120, and telemedicine stays free of co-payment. The bank also agreed to assign at least one employee on an exclusive basis to the plan at each of its regional personnel offices.What still depends on the voteNone of these measures is in force yet: all of them depend on approval in Monday's assemblies. If workers accept the deal, the stoppage day of August 20 will be excused and strike days will have to be compensated within 180 days. The Contraf-CUT, quoted by Poder360, says profit-sharing payments, the Super Caixa bonus and an extraordinary prize of R$ 3,000 per employee will be paid on September 30 if the deal passes by September 21. The strike began after more than 90% of union members rejected the previous offer. Brazil's banking sector as a whole had already signed its national agreement with the banks' federation, with inflation replacement plus a 0.6% real raise over two years, according to G1.Outside the bank, the strike has practical effects. Folha de S.Paulo reports it may delay loan approvals under Move Brasil, a government-backed vehicle financing program, and other operations that depend on the bank's analysis, such as home loans. In a statement to the newspaper, Caixa said Move Brasil applications continue normally and can be completed digitally, through the bank's WhatsApp service, or in person at branches.For customers with pending operations, the fastest route is the bank's digital channels, which remain active according to Caixa itself. Employees should follow their unions and the CEE to take part in Monday's electronic assembly, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The result decides whether the strike ends or talks restart.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, are in a technical tie in a potential runoff of Brazil's presidential race, according to the Indexa/Broadcast poll released on Tuesday (15) and published by CartaCapital. In a head-to-head contest, the incumbent has 43% of vote intentions against 42% for the senator, a one-point gap that falls inside the margin of error of 2.2 percentage points (95% confidence level), which is what Brazilian pollsters call a technical tie. The institute heard 2,000 voters by phone between September 10 and 13, and the survey is registered with the electoral court, the TSE, under number BR-03482/2026. The first round is scheduled for October 4.The change this round confirms is the narrowing of the race. Over one month, Lula fell from 46% to 43% while Flávio rose from 41% to 42%, cutting the gap from five points to one, the smallest since the institute's series began in May, Exame reported. In the first-round scenario with all registered candidates, Lula has 38% (39% in August) and Flávio holds 34%, also a technical tie and the year's smallest difference. Augusto Cury (Avante) rose from 1% to 6% into third place, ahead of Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) with 4%, Renan Santos (Missão) with 3% and Romeu Zema (Novo) with 1%.Indexa tested four other runoff scenarios, all with Lula on the ballot. The president would beat Zema 45% to 34% and Renan Santos 45% to 35%, and would be technically tied with Caiado (43% to 39%) and Cury (41% to 39%). In the matchup with Flávio, Lula leads among women (46% to 39%), Catholics (47% to 39%), voters earning up to two minimum wages (47% to 37%) and in the Northeast (57% to 30%). Flávio does better among men (46% to 39%), evangelical voters (55% to 30%), those earning more than five minimum wages (47% to 39%) and in the South (56% to 31%) and the Center-West (51% to 31%). In the Southeast, the senator leads 44% to 40%.Government approval and trust in the top courtThe same round measured the political climate as the Supreme Court goes through an internal crisis. According to CNN Brasil, Lula's government is approved by 46% of voters and disapproved by 50%, with approval unchanged from August; in the overall rating, 35% call the administration terrible and 34% rate it excellent or good. On the court, 45% of respondents say they distrust the Supreme Court's work and only 10% say they trust it a lot, while 68% say they fully support impeaching the ministers involved in the crisis. A Datafolha poll released over the weekend, cited in columns alongside the Indexa survey, shows a similar split: 28% support impeaching Justice Alexandre de Moraes and 34% say he should be suspended so he can be investigated, according to UOL and G1.A fragmented polling pictureRecent polls point in different directions. The CNT/MDA survey released over the weekend gave Lula 47.3% against Flávio's 40% in a runoff, according to CNN Brasil, while PoderData/Aya, from September 10, had Flávio numerically ahead, 47% to 45%, according to Poder360. Differences of this size are expected, because each firm works with its own sample, field period and method, and some of the gaps fit within the margins of error.Readers can check these numbers safely: confirm on the TSE website that a poll carries a registration number (this round is BR-03482/2026), treat small differences as ties given the error margins, and weigh the sequence of rounds from the same institute more heavily than any single snapshot. Polls measure vote intentions at the time the interviews were conducted; the official result only exists at the ballot box, on October 4.

A first-of-its-kind poll reported by Folha de S.Paulo on Tuesday (15) shows that 64% of Brazilians support allowing a girl under 14 who becomes pregnant through rape to choose a legal, safe abortion in a public hospital. Only 16% are opposed.Ipsos-Ipec ran the survey in March for the Instituto Patrícia Galvão, a women's rights group, together with the campaign Criança Não é Mãe ("a child is not a mother"). It heard 1,200 people across the country, all of them online. As of this report, Folha was the only outlet publishing the numbers, and the material does not state a margin of error. Because data collection was online only, the sample leaves out Brazilians without internet access.What Brazilian law allowsAbortion is legal in Brazil in three situations: when the pregnancy results from rape, when the woman's life is at risk, and in cases of fetal anencephaly, allowed by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) in 2012. The rape exception has been in the Penal Code since 1940. The procedure is free through the SUS, Brazil's public health system, and settled Supreme Court rulings hold that no judicial authorization is required.The survey was taken in a country where sexual violence falls mostly on children. Of the 87,545 rapes registered in 2024, 60% of the victims were girls under 14, according to Brazilian Public Security Forum data reported by Folha; counting girls aged 14 to 17, 69.7% of the victims were minors. The Forum's 2025 yearbook, the source of those figures, shows a 6.7% rise over 2023, one victim every six minutes, and 76.8% of cases classified as rape of a vulnerable person, the crime covering victims under 14 or unable to consent. Independent coverage by Poder360 confirms that 65.7% of the assaults happened inside the victim's home. Forum executive director Samira Bueno said the figures represent "a silent epidemic that repeats itself daily, especially against children, often inside the child's own home".A public health matter, not a religious oneHalf of the respondents said abortion should be debated by health authorities; 19% named the legislature and the courts, and only 3% mentioned religious institutions. Large majorities said victims should get immediate psychological care (89%) and information on preventing sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy (72%). Folha also reports that most respondents reject forcing the girl to carry the pregnancy to term in order to give the baby up for adoption. Access to information remains uneven: a study by the NGO Plan International, cited by the newspaper, found that only half of the girls who became pregnant before 14 after rape were told about their right to a legal abortion.Anyone needing care can go to any SUS emergency room or basic health unit; treatment is free and confidential and does not require a court order. Reports of sexual violence against children and teenagers can be made through the Disque 100 hotline, and the 180 line serves women facing violence.

Anvisa, Brazil's federal health regulator, suspended the country's clinical trials of an experimental Novartis cell therapy for autoimmune diseases on Monday (14). The order, published in the Federal Official Gazette, came 13 days after the Swiss drugmaker temporarily halted the global program for the product, rapcabtagene autoleucel (rap-cel or YTB323), following the deaths of three patients.The decision stops human testing and the recruitment of new volunteers in Brazil. According to G1, three phase 2 protocols were testing rap-cel in patients with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, microscopic polyangiitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, lupus nephritis and diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis. Phase 2 mainly evaluates safety in a larger number of people. The number of volunteers already treated in Brazil has not been disclosed.What is confirmed and what is still preliminaryIt is confirmed that three deaths occurred in the global program and that Novartis attributed the severe reactions to a condition known as immune effector cell-associated hemophagocytic syndrome (IEC-HS). According to the company, cited by Folha de S.Paulo, this is a known side effect of CAR-T therapies that can cause potentially fatal complications. G1 reports that the trigger for the suspension came from outside Brazil. The analysis of what led to the deaths is still preliminary: the company says it is reviewing the cases with independent safety committees to understand why the immune response was not controlled and how warning signs can be detected earlier.What rap-cel isRap-cel is a CAR-T therapy: defense cells are collected from the patient, modified in a laboratory to recognize and attack a specific target, and returned to the bloodstream. Novartis had presented the product as a therapy with the potential to "reboot the immune system". The technique is already used against some types of cancer, and the rap-cel studies in leukemia and lymphoma were not affected by the pause. According to the company, safety observed in those patients remains within the expected range for the class of drugs.The global suspension was announced on September 1, and Endpoints News first reported the deaths on the night of August 31, according to Folha de S.Paulo, which ran a Bloomberg report. Also in response to the cases, Bristol Myers Squibb said it had suspended similar trials of its CAR-T for autoimmune diseases, zola-cel, "out of an abundance of caution". G1 sought comment from Novartis on the Anvisa decision and had received no reply by publication.In practical terms, clinical follow-up of volunteers already treated in the Brazilian protocols must continue, since the suspension applies to new procedures and recruitment. Anyone taking part in the study, or following someone who does, can contact the research center responsible for answers. Established uses of the technique against some types of cancer are not affected by this decision.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Thursday (17) that weight-loss injection pens will be offered free of charge through SUS, Brazil's universal public health system. He made the statement during a visit to pharmaceutical company Eurofarma's new industrial complex in Montes Claros, in the state of Minas Gerais, according to Folha de S.Paulo. The announcement came on the same day the government confirmed a 15.04% increase in Bolsa Família, the country's main cash-transfer program, which will see its minimum payment rise from R$ 600 to R$ 691, according to G1."What matters is that this little pen will be used to treat people who have obesity for free, right?", Lula said in his speech. A report by Estadão, republished by InfoMoney, records the same remark in a slightly different version and adds: "When the doctor detects that a man or a woman has a problem to be treated."What is confirmed and what is notWhat is confirmed so far is the presidential statement and the setting in which it was made. According to Folha, Lula did not specify which medication will be offered, which patients will be eligible, when the measure will take effect or what it will cost. Estadão adds that the president also did not say whether distribution would happen in this term or in a possible fourth one. There is, for now, no clinical protocol, target population, calendar or budget on record. The point Lula did repeat was the need for medical supervision: "First, Padilha, you have to do me a favor. With the doctors, we need an agreement with the doctors, because we cannot have pens being prescribed left and right", he said, addressing Health Minister Alexandre Padilha.The remarks came 17 days before the first round of the presidential election. Folha notes that Lula is running for reelection statistically tied with Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) in the polls, and the newspaper placed the speech among the popular-appeal announcements of the campaign's final stretch, such as a proposal to raise the annual revenue cap for individual microentrepreneurs to up to R$ 140,000. At the same event, the president defended the public health system: "They never took into account how many people the SUS saved; they only announced the people who died, to create a negative image."What to do for nowBecause the measure has no announced date or criteria, the treatment cannot be sought today at health units. People living with obesity can seek regular follow-up at their neighborhood basic health unit. It is worth following the guidance the president himself stressed: these medications, when they exist in the public network, should be used only with a prescription and medical supervision. Since the program has no announced start, any informal offer of a "SUS pen" for sale should be checked with the public network before any payment.

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced on Thursday (17) that the country's public health system, the SUS, will hand out weight-loss injection pens free of charge to treat obesity. Distribution will require a medical prescription and will follow clinical criteria set by the Health Ministry. He made the announcement during a visit to drugmaker Eurofarma's new industrial complex in Montes Claros, in the state of Minas Gerais, alongside Health Minister Alexandre Padilha.According to the magazine Veja, no start date was announced: the ministry still has to finish the clinical protocol and the eligibility rules. Lula summed up the plan in his speech at the plant:"This little pen will be used to care for people with obesity for free, when a doctor determines that a man or a woman has a health problem."Padilha said the priority will be patients with the most to gain from treatment: people with severe obesity, related diseases or an indication for bariatric surgery. "We want this medication in the SUS, as a right. We will have the protocol ready to bring it into the SUS across the whole country responsibly," he said. No obesity drug is distributed by the public network today, as a g1 report in August showed; the system's main offer is bariatric surgery, with waiting lists that can stretch for years.Why the promise became possible nowThe obstacle has always been cost. In 2025, Conitec, the commission that decides which treatments the public system covers, rejected requests to include semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, and liraglutide (Saxenda, Victoza), citing an estimated budget impact above 8 billion reais. The semaglutide patent expired in March, and cheaper Brazilian versions followed. Endocrinologist Maria Edna de Melo, of the University of São Paulo's Hospital das Clínicas and a member of the obesity study group Abeso, estimates the price has fallen from about 1,400 reais to roughly 330 reais in promotional offers. In June, Novo Nordisk filed a new request with Conitec, offering a 59% discount on the reference price and limiting access to patients over 45 without diabetes who have severe obesity and a history of heart attack. The plant Lula visited produces Poviztra, Eurofarma's semaglutide made in partnership with Novo Nordisk, launched in October 2025 at prices between 400 and 1,100 reais, according to Veja.Since late June the ministry has also been running the Real-Bari study at a hospital in Porto Alegre: 250 patients with severe obesity on the waiting list for bariatric surgery receive the pens at no cost. The goal, according to the ministry, is to assess how the therapy fits the reality of the SUS and what it costs.Election backdrop and what patients can doObesity affects 25.7% of Brazilian adults, up from 11.8% in 2006, according to Vigitel, a Health Ministry survey. The announcement comes 17 days before the first round of Brazil's presidential election. Presidential candidate Ronaldo Caiado said, according to the news site UOL, that the promise has an "appearance of populism". Lula himself, according to Poder360, urged restraint in distribution, said doctors "cannot go around prescribing pens left and right", warned against candidates "throwing pens at people" for political gain, and noted that some cases call for changes in diet rather than medication.In practice, nothing changes yet at public clinics. Until the protocol is published, the pens remain available only in the private market, with a prescription and medical follow-up. People living with obesity can seek care at their neighborhood public clinic and, in severe cases, ask about evaluation for bariatric surgery. Semaglutide requires prescription and monitoring for side effects, and should not be taken on one's own.

Drugmaker Gilead Sciences and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced on Tuesday (15) an agreement that creates a new purchasing route for lenacapavir, an injectable medicine given twice a year to prevent HIV, for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil is among the 14 countries in the region that could benefit, according to Folha de S.Paulo. Purchases would run through PAHO's Regional Revolving Funds, the organization's pooled procurement mechanism.The deal creates the possibility of purchase, not immediate delivery. The announcement released on Tuesday did not disclose a price, a volume reserved for Brazil or a supply schedule, and each government must decide whether to join. The route matters mainly for the 14 countries left out of the voluntary licensing agreements Gilead signed with generic drugmakers, among them Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, besides Brazil. Without a voluntary license, those governments depend on direct negotiations with the company.Where Brazil standsIn Brazil, the product, sold as Sunlenca, has already cleared one regulatory hurdle. In January, Anvisa, the national health regulator, approved it as PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, medicine used to prevent HIV infection) for adults and adolescents aged 12 and over who weigh at least 35 kg. Sales still depend on CMED, the government body that sets maximum drug prices. Before it can reach the SUS, the public health system, the medicine must be assessed by Conitec, the commission that reviews new health technologies, and approved by the Health Ministry. In July, the ministry tried to negotiate a direct purchase with Gilead and failed. The company says that despite the PAHO deal it intends to continue negotiations with the Brazilian government.What lenacapavir offersLenacapavir is approved in several countries as PrEP to reduce the risk of sexual HIV transmission in adults and adolescents at risk of acquiring the virus, and also, combined with other antiretrovirals, as part of treatment for multidrug-resistant HIV in adults, according to Gilead itself. The practical advantage is frequency: two injections a year instead of the daily pills of oral PrEP. The company says the drug acts at multiple stages of the virus life cycle, unlike most antivirals, and that a once-a-year version is being studied in clinical trials.PAHO director Jarbas Barbosa assessed the agreement in a statement carried by the EuropaPress agency. "The Americas now have increasingly effective tools to prevent HIV, but these innovations will only have an impact if they reach the people who need them," he said. "This initiative is an important step to narrow gaps in access to lenacapavir, expand prevention options available to countries and move toward HIV elimination." Johanna Mercier, Gilead's chief commercial and corporate affairs officer, said the deal reflects a shared commitment to help countries move "as quickly as possible from scientific innovation to real access to HIV prevention."For readers, the practical guidance is simple: the twice-yearly shot is neither on sale nor available through the SUS, and there is no date for that to change. Prevention today remains oral PrEP, daily tablets distributed free of charge by the public system. The agreement changes how purchases could be made; getting the medicine to clinics still depends on pricing, a Conitec review and a decision by the Health Ministry.

A Datafolha poll released on Saturday (September 12) shows the 2026 presidential race breaking down differently from state to state. The survey, commissioned by Globo and the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, interviewed voters in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and the Federal District between September 8 and 10. In the first-round scenario, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-leaning PL party leads in three of them, and President Lula of the Workers' Party (PT) in two.São Paulo: Flávio Bolsonaro 35%, Lula 33%, statistical tie (2-point margin of error)Rio de Janeiro: Flávio 39%, Lula 35%, statistical tie (3-point margin)Minas Gerais: Lula 37%, Flávio 35%, statistical tie (3-point margin)Pernambuco: Lula 55%, Flávio 24% (3-point margin)Federal District: Flávio 40%, Lula 32% (3-point margin)According to g1, which published results for all five states, the races in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais count as statistical ties because the gap between the two frontrunners falls within the margin of error. In Pernambuco, Lula's 31-point lead, and in the Federal District, Flávio Bolsonaro's 8-point lead, exceed the 3-point margin.Runoff simulationsAmong São Paulo voters, a runoff between the two would put Flávio Bolsonaro at 47% against 42% for Lula, a 5-point lead above the 2-point margin. In Minas Gerais the race remains open: Lula has 46% and Flávio Bolsonaro 45%, within the 3-point margin. Folha published those runoff numbers.Folha's breakdown of the São Paulo first round shows Augusto Cury (Avante) at 7%, Renan Santos (Missão) at 6% and Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) at 4%. Samara Martins (UP) and Romeu Zema (Novo) have 2% each. Another 6% say they will cast blank or spoiled ballots, and 2% are undecided.How to read the numbersInterviews were conducted in person, at a 95% confidence level. In practice, 95 out of 100 identical measurements would land within the stated margin of error: 2 percentage points in São Paulo and 3 in the other states. The first-round figures measure stated vote intention as of September 8 to 10; the runoff figures simulate a contest that does not exist yet. Neither is a forecast of the October 2026 vote.Recent history shows how close these states can run. In 2022, Jair Bolsonaro beat Lula in São Paulo 55.2% to 44.8%, a gap of 2.7 million votes. In Minas Gerais, Lula won by 0.4 point, about 49,500 votes. Minas is Brazil's second-largest electorate and has historically sided with the eventual winner, as Folha noted.Readers who want to check the data at the source can consult the complete state-by-state results published by g1 and Datafolha, including the runoff simulations and the ratings of the Lula government measured in each state. Brazil's presidential election takes place in October 2026.

The head of Brazil's private health insurance regulator, the ANS, said he has advised friends and relatives to take their insurers to court when treatment claims are denied. Wadih Damous made the remarks on September 8 in Brasília, at an event with health industry executives and representatives of presidential campaigns, according to the Painel column of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo."I will confess. Sometimes acquaintances, friends and family come to me. I tell them: go to court," Folha quoted Damous as saying.The meeting, titled "A Saúde do Brasil em 2030: Onde Vamos Estar?" (The Health of Brazil in 2030: Where Will We Be?), ran from 8 a.m. at the B Hotel in the capital and was organized by the Amado Mundo channel with the Instituto Consenso, according to the trade site Saúde Insider. Health Minister Alexandre Padilha attended alongside Damous, and representatives of the main presidential campaigns presented proposals for the SUS, Brazil's free public health system, for private insurance, drug coverage and financing, weeks before the October election.The statement follows the position Damous laid out on August 28 at a seminar run by the FGV university in Rio de Janeiro. Quoted by Saúde Insider, he said the agency "failed" as a regulator, that every lawsuit against a plan is a "defeat" for the ANS and that old regulatory gaps persist on issues such as refunds and co-payments. He called for cooperation among insurers, consumer protection groups, prosecutors and public defenders, and pressed Congress for stronger legal tools, citing Bill 7.419, which would update the 1998 health plan law and has been pending for 20 years.What the data showFigures from the CNJ, the council that oversees Brazil's courts, show the scale of the problem, according to a Saúde Insider survey. Courts received 704,800 new health lawsuits in 2025, covering the public system and private plans together. Suits against insurers rose from 228,640 in 2023 to 341,763 in 2025, up 49.5%. The trend held this year: from January to May, 154,885 new cases involved private plans, 20% more than in the same period of 2025, while the number of plan users grew only 1.8% between December 2024 and December 2025. Damous put the country's total of plan users at 53.1 million.In a sample of 1,992 cases reviewed by the CNJ's Atalaia tool, 69.4% of the demands involved access to medicines or treatments, and half of those (50.2%) concerned technologies outside the ANS list of mandatory procedures, known as the Rol. The sample is a snapshot, not a full count. The industry disputes part of the litigation. Renato Casarotti, institutional relations vice president of insurer Amil, split lawsuits into "legitimate" and "predatory" categories and cited an agreement with the Rio de Janeiro public defenders' office, in force since July 2025, that settles 70% to 80% of demands out of court.What to do after a denialA customer who gets a refusal has options before and beyond a lawsuit: ask the insurer for the denial in writing, file a complaint through the ANS service channels and contact the public defenders' office, which is free of charge and, judging by the Rio agreement, settles most cases without a judge. Keeping test results, prescriptions and the insurer's written response shortens whichever path is chosen.

Former Brazilian president José Sarney, 96, was admitted to hospital with pneumonia on Sunday (Sept. 13) at the UDI Hospital, run by the Rede D'Or chain, in São Luís, capital of the northeastern state of Maranhão. A medical bulletin released by the hospital on Sunday night said his clinical condition is stable. The hospitalization was reported by G1, the news portal of TV Globo, and confirmed by CNN Brasil.The bulletin, signed by the São Luís unit of Rede D'Or, said Sarney's blood pressure is under control, that he is breathing room air without oxygen support, and that he is receiving antimicrobial drugs intravenously. The hospital gave no date for his discharge.In a post on Instagram, the former president said he had been admitted for tests and treatment of a respiratory infection, and thanked people for their messages of support."My health is stable and I remain under medical care. I warmly thank all the messages, prayers and gestures of friendship I have received."Sarney governed Brazil from 1985 to 1990 and was the first civilian president after two decades of military rule. He later served several terms as Senate president and remains one of the most influential figures in Maranhão politics.What is confirmed and what is not yet knownThe hospital bulletin confirms the pneumonia diagnosis and the stable condition. CNN Brasil reported his age as 96. The bulletin makes no mention of intensive care, does not identify the cause of the infection or any test results, and sets no discharge date. Further updates depend on new bulletins issued by the hospital.Pneumonia among older adultsPneumonia is an infection that inflames the lungs and, according to Brazil's Health Ministry, ranks among the main causes of hospitalization of older adults in the country. In people over 60, warning signs can be subtler than in younger adults: besides fever, cough and shortness of breath, families should watch for sudden confusion, unusual drowsiness and loss of appetite. Any of these symptoms calls for medical evaluation at a clinic or emergency room. Vaccination lowers the risk: Brazil's public health system, the SUS, offers the annual flu shot from age 60, and private health plans are required by regulator ANS to cover pneumococcal vaccines for customers from that age. Checking one's vaccination record with a doctor or at a public clinic is the first step.

Nearly 28% of Brazilian high school students say they have already placed bets on online gambling platforms, known in Brazil as bets, even though gambling is banned for anyone under 18. Among students in the final years of elementary school (grades 6 to 9), the share is 16.2%. Betting typically starts at around age 11, and by that age 9.5% of respondents said they had already wagered.The survey was released on Wednesday (Sept 9) by the cross-party Education Caucus in Congress, the Frente Parlamentar Mista da Educação, together with the data initiative Equidade.info. Researchers interviewed 1,912 students at 191 schools across the country, in person, using structured questionnaires, in August and September. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the confidence level is 95% and the margin of error 2.4 percentage points.What the numbers showPrevalence rises with age: it reaches 32.3% among 17-year-olds, 40.1% among students aged 18 or older, and 49.7% in the final year of high school, according to the state news agency Agência Brasil. Across the full sample, 27.8% of boys had already bet, against 12.6% of girls; in high school, the gap widens to 41.7% versus 12%. Public and private schools show nearly identical prevalence. In public schools, more students report having won more than they lost (7.4%); in private schools, more report having lost more than they won (9.5%).Two findings call for caution. First, the data are self-reported, and many students do not track their own results: four in ten who have bet cannot say whether they won or lost more on the platforms. Second, the estimate that aggregate losses among this group could exceed R$ 1 billion is a projection by the researchers, not an audited figure. Maternal schooling alone explains little: 22.7% of children whose mothers have only elementary education have already bet, compared with 19.6% when the mother finished high school and 22.8% when she has a college degree. According to the study, the most vulnerable students are those "in households with more assets, but enrolled in public schools and with parents lacking higher education".What is preliminary and what is recommendedFinancial education in the curriculum did not reduce exposure to betting in this survey: according to Agência Brasil, students in schools with more financial literacy showed a higher probability of betting and less control over gains and losses. This is an association observed in a single round of data, with no proof of causation yet. The study coordinator, Guilherme Lichand, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, argues that solutions focused on individual behavior tend to fail, because scientific studies show that reminders about past losses, an intervention suggested by the platforms themselves, do not work."Instead, banning advertising and levying meaningful taxes on the amounts transacted by betting platforms puts responsibility on the right actors and has proven effects on reducing exposure risk", Lichand said.The caucus chair, Representative Tabata Amaral, told Folha de S.Paulo: "We are talking about a practice that can undermine the financial health and the development of an entire generation". The survey's recommendations target regulators: higher taxes on platform transactions, restrictions on advertising, and specific protections for minors. For families and schools, the most actionable figure is the starting age: if betting usually begins around age 11, the conversation needs to start much earlier than high school.

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and the opposition candidate, would take 46.4% of voter intentions in an eventual second round against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who polls at 46.2%, according to an AtlasIntel/Bloomberg survey released on Thursday, September 10. The 0.2 point gap falls inside the poll's margin of error of one percentage point, which makes the matchup a statistical tie. Blank, spoiled and undecided responses total 7.4%.In the previous wave of the same tracking poll, Lula had 47.1% and Flávio 42.6%, with 10.3% blank, spoiled or undecided, Estadão reports. In first-round voting intentions, Lula leads with 43% to Flávio's 37.4%, and UOL describes the president as stable in the lead while the senator gains in both scenarios. Augusto Cury (Avante), at 6.6%, and Renan Santos (Missão), at 6.5%, are technically tied behind them. Brazil's presidential race only goes to a second round if no candidate wins an outright majority, which is the stage the poll simulates.How the poll was conductedAtlasIntel interviewed 5,000 voters between September 4 and 9 using random digital recruitment over the internet, a method the firm calls Atlas RDR. The margin of error is one percentage point in either direction, the confidence level is 95%, and the survey, funded by the institute itself, is registered with Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) under protocol BR-01452/2026, according to CNN Brasil.It helps to separate what is solid from what is provisional. The published figures are a statistical snapshot of the fieldwork week, drawn from a large sample with formal electoral registration. The runoff numbers are simulations, and polls do not forecast outcomes: with a one-point margin of error, gaps of up to two points between candidates carry no real advantage. The 0.2-point difference between Flávio and Lula should be read as parity.Other scenarios and rejectionThe institute tested four more simulated runoffs, all with Lula on one side. Against Romeu Zema (Novo), the former Minas Gerais governor would get 46.2% to the president's 46.0%. Against Ronaldo Caiado (PSD), a 45.7% tie. Facing Augusto Cury (Avante), Lula would be numerically ahead, 43.8% to 41.1%. Against Renan Santos, the president would take 46.0% to the Movimento Brasil Livre coordinator's 33.8%.On rejection, Lula is the most rejected name at 52.5%, followed by Flávio at 49.6%, Estadão reports, then Renan Santos (35.7%), Pablo Marçal (35.1%), Romeu Zema (31.6%), Ronaldo Caiado (28.1%) and Augusto Cury (25.6%). Former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who is not running, stands at 37.7%. Pollsters diverge on the size of Lula's first-round lead: a recent PoderData/Aya survey published by Poder360 has 38% for the president and 36% for Flávio. The first round is scheduled for October 4, G1 notes. The safest way to follow the race is to compare at least two polling firms and always check the margin of error; the full AtlasIntel survey is on file with the TSE under protocol BR-01452/2026.

Brazil's Federal Police suspects that Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli may have been the final beneficiary or de facto owner of the Arleen fund, an investment vehicle that received at least 35 million reais from banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, and whose assets were moved to a holding registered in the British Virgin Islands, a Caribbean tax haven. The finding was published on Thursday (10) by Revista Piauí, in a story by Breno Pires based on a confidential police report sent to the court, and was detailed by Folha de S.Paulo and Correio Braziliense.How the money reached the CaribbeanThe document, identified as Judicial Police Information of Analysis no. 893171/2026, runs to nearly 200 pages, was signed by four federal police delegates and was built from the contents of Vorcaro's phone, seized in late 2025, according to Correio Braziliense. It reached the STF, Brazil's top court, about seven months ago, handed to Chief Justice Edson Fachin and opened to the other ten members of the bench."Several elements of information were identified which, analyzed together, point to the possibility that Justice José Antonio Dias Toffoli figured as the final beneficiary or de facto owner of the FIP Arleen, as well as of its assets."According to the reports, the Arleen fund bought part of the quotas of Maridt, a company controlled by the justice's brothers and tied to the Tayayá resort in Ribeirão Claro, and in which Toffoli has acknowledged holding a stake. The fund then passed to businessman Alberto Leite, owner of FS Security and a friend of the justice; Folha dates the purchase to February 2025. One month later its rules were changed to allow investments abroad, and in December the assets went to the holding Egide I, in the British Virgin Islands. Messages from Vorcaro's phone cited by Correio Braziliense show concern over delays in the transfers: the banker mobilized his brother-in-law Fabiano Zettel and former communications minister Fábio Faria to unblock the funds and, after speaking with Toffoli, said the delay had left him in a bad position. In messages from late 2025 he arranged the formal transfer of the fund to Leite and asked for a draft contract "without a name".What is fact and what is hypothesisThe financial movements are laid out in the report: the contribution of at least 35 million reais from Vorcaro, the rule change and the shipment of assets to the Caribbean over the course of 2025. The link between the fund and Toffoli, by contrast, is presented as a hypothesis. The same document records at least 12 in-person meetings between the justice and the banker between late 2023 and early 2025, plus 167 calls over messaging apps between the two phones, and concedes the case needs deeper analysis, with no definitive conclusions. In a closed-door session, the justices concluded the report led nowhere and shelved it; Toffoli's office says that decision is final and unappealable.Contacted by Revista Piauí, the justice's office denied any wrongdoing. In a statement, it said Toffoli "has never held or had, directly or indirectly, resources abroad" and "has never carried out any operation, directly or indirectly, in the British Virgin Islands", and that he was never a friend of Vorcaro. The same report also supports the previously reported suspicion that the banker tried to sway a Toffoli vote in a case on precatórios, the court-ordered government debt payments at issue in the wider Banco Master investigation.For readers tracking the case, two practical points. The report behind the Arleen suspicion is part of the sealed Master case files: this week the court lifted secrecy on only part of the record, and according to Piauí, of the two reports on ministers' ties to Vorcaro only one was made public. With the case shelved, that line of inquiry can only resume if new evidence emerges, a call that belongs to the court itself. A police suspicion is not a conviction.

Documents from Brazil's federal Prosecutor General's Office (PGR) and the Federal Police that became public on Friday (Sept. 11) show that prosecutors asked investigators to examine possible legislative proposals put forward or backed by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), his party's candidate in October's presidential election, that could have served the interests of Banco Master and its founder, Daniel Vorcaro. The same material indicates, according to the newspaper Folha, that his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro acted as the manager of the money raised for "Dark Horse", a film about former president Jair Bolsonaro.The request appears in a PGR opinion dated June 21 that supported opening an investigation into Flávio over the film's financing, first reported by Poder360. The text became public after the president of the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), Brazil's top court, Edson Fachin, ordered late on Thursday the release of part of the main inquiry into the Master case, a step carried out on Friday by the rapporteur, Justice André Mendonça."Legislative propositions presented or endorsed by Senator Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro and by congressman Mario Luis Frias within the National Congress, which may be of interest to Banco Master or companies linked to it, as well as to its controllers, especially Daniel Bueno Vorcaro."In the opinion, the prosecutors recommended linking those proposals to the inquiry. On July 22, Mendonça authorized the investigation of Flávio on suspicion of money laundering, currency evasion and corruption, among other possible crimes, according to G1 and BBC News Brasil. The file on the senator remains sealed, but the authorization was included in the main case, now public. Congressman Mario Frias, named in the same passage, was targeted by a Federal Police operation on Thursday in a separate inquiry led by Justice Flávio Dino.What the documents say about the brothersAccording to Folha, the files show that Flávio was a direct interlocutor of Vorcaro in negotiations over investment in the film, with in-person meetings and repeated demands for payment. In a report cited by the newspaper, the Federal Police wrote that the senator "does not appear only as a third party mentioned in other people's communications, but as a direct interlocutor of Daniel Vorcaro". The newspaper also reports that police suspect part of the money raised was used to pay Eduardo's expenses in the United States. According to G1, the person in charge of the American fund Havengate, used for the transfers, is the lawyer Paulo Calixto, who represents Eduardo in that country.The numbers known so far: Vorcaro transferred 61 million reais to the producers through Havengate, and Flávio had negotiated 24 million dollars, about 134 million reais at the time; the production company says it spent 75.1 million reais. Businessman Antônio Carlos Freixo Júnior, known as Mineiro, signed a cooperation agreement with the PGR and said he made seven transfers to the fund between January and September 2025, totaling 12.333 million dollars, at Vorcaro's request and in amounts requested by Flávio. The September transfer, of 1.666 million dollars, contradicts the senator's account that the last payment had come in May 2025.Defense and status of the inquiryFlávio denies any wrongdoing. "Total transparency on this matter is the best thing that could happen", he said on Friday while campaigning in Amazonas state, according to BBC News Brasil, which also quoted him saying that opponents will try "to do everything to destabilize and invent things where there are none". Poder360 sought comment from the senator and from Mario Frias and received no reply before publication. Vorcaro has been held since November 2025 and is suspected of a 12 billion reais fraud against the financial system, according to the BBC.What is confirmed so far is the content of the documents: the PGR's suggestion, the opening of the inquiry and the findings about the two brothers. The suspicion that Flávio acted in Congress in defense of Master, and that Eduardo managed the film's money, still has to be proven, and no charges have been filed against either of them. The next steps belong to the Federal Police and the PGR, which may ask for the case to be closed or file charges at the STF. Readers can follow the public files on the court's website, while the inquiry on Flávio stays sealed. Before sharing excerpts of the documents, it is worth checking the full text in official sources.

The presidential poll tracker of BBC News Brasil has moved to show Senator Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of President Lula in a runoff scenario, the outlet reported on Tuesday (Sept 8). The update replaces the tracker's earlier reading, a statistical tie between the two men. Brazilians vote in the first round on Oct. 4; if no candidate wins more than half of valid votes, the runoff is set for Oct. 25.The tracker pools national voting intention polls in an interactive dashboard and is recalculated as new surveys are added. Its shift follows a run of runoff readings with Flávio numerically in front: a survey by the Gerp institute put the senator at 47% against the president's 40%, and on Wednesday (Sept 9) the Palver institute released 46% to 44% in his favor, a gap that JOTA and UOL describe as a statistical tie because it falls within the margin of error.First round and the statesIn first-round voting intentions, Palver found a tie at 40% between Lula, the Workers' Party incumbent seeking reelection, and Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing PL, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as CNN Brasil also reported. State-level polls by the Quaest institute, released before the BBC update, had already shown the senator ahead in runoff scenarios in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and the Federal District, with Lula leading only in Pernambuco.What is settled and what is provisionalWhat the data confirms so far is a sequence of runoff readings with Flávio numerically ahead. The size of his lead remains provisional: Palver's 2-point gap sits inside the margin of error, and the tracker shifts again with every new poll. Brazilian law requires each survey's sample size and margin of error to be registered with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the body that runs the election.To follow the race without leaning on a single number, readers can check each poll's registration in the TSE disclosure system, compare successive results from the same institute and watch whether gaps fall inside or outside the margin of error. The next national polls will show whether the tracker's new reading holds.

Brazil's Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) has given the Ministry of Health 60 days to explain why 97% of drug deliveries scheduled under an agreement with the Fiocruz biomedical institute arrived late between June and December 2024. Only 3% arrived on the contracted date. The audit was reported on Wednesday (9) by g1, Globo's news portal, the only outlet carrying the story that this report could reach.The agreement, Technical Cooperation Agreement (ACT) 02/2023, is managed by the ministry's science and technology secretariat, with shipments made by Farmanguinhos, the drug manufacturing institute of Fiocruz. The medicines belong to a SUS program for diseases that require specialized care. Brazil's public health system distributes them free of charge. The audit covered four medicines in seven formulations: cabergoline, pramipexole, sevelamer and tacrolimus, all of them continuous-use drugs. Tacrolimus prevents organ rejection in transplant patients, pramipexole treats Parkinson's disease, sevelamer controls blood phosphorus in chronic kidney disease and cabergoline lowers excess prolactin.The percentages measure punctuality, not volume. Delays show up in quantity too: of roughly 248.84 million pharmaceutical units planned for the period, about 106.28 million were delivered, 43% of the total. The TCU itself cautions that the 3% on-time rate applies to this agreement alone and cannot be read as an average for the ministry's purchases.What the court foundThe audit recorded problems in obtaining inputs, in production and in logistics, along with the effects of a cyberattack on Farmanguinhos in August 2023. The failures were not limited to manufacturing. The TCU also pointed to delays by the Ministry of Health itself in formalizing distribution schedules and in transferring budget funds. In some cases, the court says, this led to production based on informal estimates, raising the risk of losses from expired drugs. There were also obstacles to scheduling deliveries with state health departments and customs hurdles.No confirmed nationwide shortageThe TCU says the data do not allow the conclusion that there was a national shortage. The assessment runs into a limitation acknowledged by the ministry itself: Brazil lacks a computerized system with real-time updates that tracks both consumption and stocks of these medicines nationwide. The ministry told the court it adopted contingency measures and moved stocks between states to preserve treatment continuity. For the TCU, the absence of real-time data keeps the public system exposed to the risk of running out of a critical input. g1 also reported that punctuality indicators existed, but they were to be consolidated mainly at the end of the agreements, which made control reactive. Neither the ministry nor Fiocruz answered the outlet's questions before publication.For patients, routine steps matter more than alarm. The court found no confirmed national shortage, but drugs such as tacrolimus and pramipexole depend on steady refills, and transplant patients have the narrowest margin: without the immunosuppressant, the body may start rejecting the transplanted organ. Renewing prescriptions early, checking availability at the dispensing unit before personal supplies run out and telling one's doctor about any difficulty picking up medication are the steps that reduce the risk of interruption.

Anvisa, Brazil's health regulator, has approved the registration of two generic drugs based on liraglutide, the active ingredient in injectable pens used to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes. The authorizations went to the Brazilian pharmaceutical company EMS and were published on Tuesday (Sept. 8) in the Diário Oficial da União, the federal government's official gazette. The products will come as a 6 mg/mL injectable solution given under the skin.According to the state news agency Agência Brasil, the two registrations are tied to pens EMS already sells: Olire, for weight control in adults and adolescents, and Lirux, for managing blood sugar. News outlet G1 notes that Anvisa approved both pens in December 2024 and they began reaching pharmacies in August 2025.What changes with the registrationThe change is regulatory. Registered as generics, the products can be sold under the name of the active ingredient, liraglutide, without a commercial brand. In the official document the drugs appear as a "generic, clone registration", a simplified procedure Anvisa uses when a new product shares the composition, manufacturer and production line of a drug that has already gone through the agency's full review, called the matrix drug. Here the matrices are precisely Olire and Lirux, and the differences are limited to the name, labeling and legal information on the package.To qualify as a generic, a drug must have the same active ingredient, concentration, pharmaceutical form, route of administration and indication as the reference drug, and must show equivalence so that it can be substituted for it. The new registrations cover packs with one, two, three, five and up to ten 3 mL cartridges, the small reservoir that fits into the applicator pen.No price or launch date yetThis is where the announcement stops. Approval does not mean the generic versions will be on shelves right away: according to G1, EMS still has to set the launch and the commercial prices. In Brazil, maximum drug prices are regulated by the CMED (Medicine Market Regulation Chamber), and the current rule caps the factory price of a generic at 65% of the value authorized for the reference drug. That does not guarantee a proportional drop at the counter, since the final price varies with taxes, manufacturer discounts and the commercial policy of pharmacy chains.Some market figures help put this in context. When it launched Olire and Lirux in 2025, EMS announced suggested prices starting at R$ 307.26 per pen. Liraglutide has been sold in Brazil for years and is also the active ingredient in Saxenda, for weight control, and Victoza, for type 2 diabetes, both made by Novo Nordisk. The molecule is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, the same class as semaglutide, found in Ozempic and Wegovy, and it mimics a gut hormone involved in controlling glucose and appetite. One practical difference from the newest pens: liraglutide is injected every day, while semaglutide and tirzepatide have weekly versions.For anyone using or considering these drugs, this is what can be said today: the approved generics are equivalent to the matrix drugs already reviewed by Anvisa, but they have no arrival date in pharmacies and no announced price. The two indications are separate, one aimed at obesity and the other at type 2 diabetes, each with its own dosing. According to G1, sales require a prescription, which is kept by the pharmacy. The guidance remains the usual one: talk to the prescriber before switching formulation or dose, and buy only with a prescription from a pharmacy.

Brazil's federal tax authority, the Receita Federal, said on Tuesday (8) that it had identified and blocked more than R$ 1 billion in suspicious refund claims for salário-maternidade, the country's maternity pay benefit. According to the agency, the requests came from shell companies and other organizations that may have tried to obtain social security funds improperly, and intercepting them prevented losses to public coffers.What the data showedThe block applies to the channel companies use to claim back maternity pay they advanced to employees; the benefit itself continues to be paid normally, and workers who receive maternity pay directly from the INSS, Brazil's national social security institute, are unaffected. The agency cross-checked tax, social security and registration records and found a pattern incompatible with the benefit's rules: companies with a single employee, revenue near zero, missing entries in fiscal ledgers and unusually high claim amounts. The review also found claims tied to insured women with no record of children, business owners listed at the same time as owners and employees of their own companies, and cases in which the same person would have received multiple benefits through different companies within a short period.Among the examples cited by the Receita Federal is a self-employed courier registered as a microempreendedor individual, a simplified one-person company category, who claimed R$ 500,000 in refunds even though the law does not allow this type of compensation for the category. In another case, companies with little or no relevant revenue filed high-value claims and shared ties with proxies who represented dozens of other companies in similar situations.The headline figure needs careful reading. The R$ 1 billion refers to blocked claims, not to money actually paid out or stolen. According to the agency, those involved are subject to returning the amounts, paying fines and facing administrative and criminal sanctions, and investigations continue to identify the people responsible. No names have been released.How the refund works and how to stay safeUnder current rules, a refund is allowed only when a company advances maternity pay to an employee covered by Brazil's general social security regime. Benefits paid directly by the INSS give no right to compensation through the electronic system used for such claims, known as PER/DCOMP. Maternity pay goes to insured mothers and, in cases such as adoption or the death of the mother, can also be granted to insured fathers, according to the INSS.The agency also warned about people and firms offering tax solutions that promise "guaranteed" credits or fast refunds. Such offers should be treated with caution, the Receita Federal said, because those who join in may have to return the amounts, pay fines and face penalties provided by law. Companies with questions about compensation should check the benefit's rules through official channels before filing any claim.

The wealthiest quarter of Brazilian students scored 96 points more in science than the poorest quarter in the 2025 Pisa, the Programme for International Student Assessment run by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The results were released on Tuesday (September 8) and come from the edition in which science received the most detailed analysis.According to Folha de S.Paulo, the average among the most disadvantaged students was 380 points, against roughly 476 for the most advantaged, a level close to the OECD average in the subject, 482. Brazil's national average in science was 409. The 96-point gap exceeds the OECD average of 85 points, though it sits below the widest case in the group: in Germany the difference reaches 125 points, the largest among OECD countries with available data, while in Canada it is 59.To gauge the size of the gap, Folha notes that a 20-point variation in Pisa equals roughly one year of learning. On that yardstick, the 96 points separating the Brazilian extremes amount to nearly five years of schooling between two groups of students of the same age, 15.How the groups are definedPisa does not rank students by family income. The OECD uses an index called ESCS, which combines parents' education and occupation with resources available at home, such as books, a place to study and internet access. When the report refers to the richest and poorest 25%, it compares quarters of that composite scale, not salary brackets.Roughly 760,000 students enrolled in schools across 91 countries and economies sat the exam. In Brazil, 30,140 students took part; 72.4% of them attended state-run schools and 84.7% were in the first or second year of high school, according to Poder360. These are final figures published in the 2025 cycle report, not preliminary estimates.How to read the numberBrazil's 409 points in science are the highest in the series presented by Inep, the federal institute behind the country's education assessments, though Folha points out the score is close to the 401 recorded in 2015, with no significant change over the decade. Three checks help interpret the gap between groups:when comparing headlines, check which OECD average is being used: 482 points for all 38 member countries, or 486, the comparable average used for historical trends, based on 23 countries since 2000;"rich" and "poor" are quarters of the ESCS index, and national averages hide differences between states and school systems;the full reports are publicly available from the OECD and from the Brazilian data presented by Inep.

Seven in ten Brazilian 15-year-olds, or 72%, scored below level 2 in mathematics in Pisa 2025, the minimum threshold the assessment treats as satisfactory. The results were released on Tuesday (Sept. 8). This edition tested more than 760,000 15-year-olds across 91 countries and regions, including more than 30,000 Brazilians, according to Folha de S.Paulo. Pisa is the Programme for International Student Assessment, run every three years by the OECD, the group of mostly rich countries, to measure math, reading and science.In practice, by the examples cited by G1, a student at that level cannot multiply to convert currencies, for instance saying how many reais 2 dollars are worth knowing that 1 dollar equals 5.13 reais, or compare the distances a car travels on two different routes. The OECD defines level 2 as the baseline needed to take full part in society. Among member countries, 35% of students fall below it in math, less than half the Brazilian share.Most of the Brazilian students who miss the minimum sit at the very bottom of the scale. According to G1, 44% score below even level 1a, the very low band, and another 28% stop at level 1a. At the top, the picture flips: virtually no Brazilian student reaches levels 5 or 6, the highest in Pisa, where 8% of students sit in the OECD average.No measurable change in a decadeBrazil's average math score was 377 points, exactly the same as ten years ago, according to Folha. From 2022 to 2025 it fell 2 points, a variation that can sit within the sampling margin of error and that, under Pisa methodology, does not show a real change in performance. The average across the OECD's current 38 members was 463 points, and the group posted its worst results in the assessment's history in all three areas, with a steep math decline after 2018. The 2025 edition also included, for the first time, a computational problem-solving test, in which Brazil scored 406 points, near Jordan and Argentina and almost 100 below the OECD average of 500, according to G1.What researchers sayOn causes, the test measures nothing. The explanations come from researchers. For Ernesto Martins of Iede (Interdisciplinarity and Evidence in the Educational Debate), a Brazilian research center, the weakness in math is shared across South America: none of the eight countries in the region with data in 2025 comes close to the OECD average, and Brazil, at 377 points, sits ahead of only Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, with Uruguay, the region's best, at 405. In his view, one reason lies in how teachers are trained."We need to expand teachers' mathematical repertoire. Our degree programs often attract candidates with a weaker basic education, and during their studies they cannot always make up for these gaps and sufficiently prepare the future teacher for classroom practice," Martins told G1.On the student side, the gaps pile up year after year."Math has a progression that depends particularly on earlier learning. A child who does not consolidate number sense, operations, fractions and proportionality reaches the final school years with gaps that make algebra, geometry and problem solving harder. The teacher in those final years then teaches more advanced content to students who have not yet mastered the fundamentals," he said.For families and schools, the practical reading of the data lies in that progression: the gaps that stall teenagers form in the early years, in foundations such as number sense, operations, fractions and proportionality. Catching and fixing those difficulties early, and expanding teachers' mathematical training, is the path the researcher points to for lifting Brazil off the bottom of the Pisa scale.

Brazil's health regulator Anvisa authorized on August 20 the start of clinical trials for the country's first messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine developed entirely at home. The Covid-19 shot was created by Bio-Manguinhos, the immunobiology institute of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil's leading public biomedical research institution, and is the first product built on fully domestic mRNA technology to reach human testing, according to the agency and the foundation.The green-lit study is a Phase 1 trial, the first step in humans. It will measure safety and immune response when the vaccine is given as a booster dose to healthy adults aged 18 to 59, at three dose levels: 25, 50 and 100 micrograms. According to the protocol registered on ClinicalTrials.gov under number NCT07640308, the trial is open-label, multicenter, non-randomized and uncontrolled, meaning participants and researchers know which vaccine is being given and there is no comparison group. Each volunteer will be followed for one year. Recruitment is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, pending approval by a research ethics committee.Before reaching this stage, the vaccine went through preclinical testing that Fiocruz says showed protection against the disease, along with toxicology and scale-up studies. What is new for the country lies in the origin of the technology. The news outlet g1 reports that the lipid nanoparticle that shields the RNA and the vaccine's genetic structure were developed in Brazil, without importing or licensing them from foreign laboratories. Fiocruz says its pilot plant is the first in Latin America with Good Manufacturing Practice certification and that it is the first partner in the global mRNA technology transfer program of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Medicines Patent Pool to bring a product to clinical trials. The project has received R$ 77 million from the Health Ministry, plus funding from the state development bank BNDES and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).It helps to separate what is confirmed from what remains preliminary. Confirmed: the authorization to test, the design of the study, and national mastery of the platform, with a certified pilot plant and public funding. Pending: everything that depends on results, because Phase 1 checks safety and immune response rather than protection against disease, and registration for general use can only be requested once the clinical phases are complete. "The consolidation of this platform expands national capacity to respond to health emergencies, reduces dependence on foreign technologies and creates a basis for the development of new products to address different challenges of the Unified Health System (SUS)", said Fiocruz president Mario Moreira, referring to Brazil's public health system. Anvisa's director-president Leandro Safatle called the study "a concrete demonstration of Brazil's commitment to health protection and to the development of science"."This is a great milestone for Brazil, so that we can position ourselves as a biotechnology leader in Latin America in this field. It is a milestone for the country's sovereignty and for Brazilian research."Beyond Covid-19Those were the words of Patrícia Neves, a Fiocruz researcher who helped develop the vaccine, speaking to g1. Neves, who leads the RNA project at Bio-Manguinhos, summed up the platform's reach: "The potential is enormous. We will have the first Covid-19 vaccine, but we already have studies under way for others, against leishmaniasis and tuberculosis, for example, and we know it is possible to produce therapies for diseases such as cancer", she said in a Fiocruz statement. G1 lists other domestic research lines at an early stage: a cancer vaccine based on tumor antigens, an mRNA treatment that, in animals, made tumor cells produce a protein capable of inducing the tumor's own death, reducing its volume by up to 85%, and a planned mRNA-based version of CAR-T therapy that would remove the need to extract and modify a patient's cells outside the body. All of these remain in laboratories and animal models, with no date for human testing.What it means for readersFor now, nothing changes. The vaccine does not exist as a product: it is not approved, not for sale and not available through the public system, and it will only reach the market if it passes the remaining clinical phases. Covid-19 boosters on Brazil's national immunization calendar remain the shots already registered with Anvisa. Readers who want to follow the trial or apply as volunteers should wait for Fiocruz's official call, expected in 2027, and rely only on the institution's official channels: participation in clinical research is free of charge, and anyone demanding payment for a spot is running a scam.

Brazil's federal government has included the selective tax, popularly known as the "sin tax", in the 2027 annual budget bill sent to Congress on Monday (Aug. 31). The levy will apply to cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and soft drinks, among other products, and the economic team expects it to raise R$ 41.9 billion next year, according to news outlet G1.The list of targets goes beyond the health-related trio. It also covers vehicles taxed according to their pollution level, mineral extraction, lotteries, betting and fantasy sports. According to the Finance Ministry, the tax burden on these products will be kept unchanged during a transition period with no set end date, and only later raised "for its regulatory effect of reducing the consumption of products that are harmful to health and the environment". The tax still needs regulation approved by Congress, and the government has not sent that bill yet. Rates and timeline remain open.The health costs behind the estimateThe figures gathered by the government point to health costs far above the expected revenue. A survey by Fiocruz, Brazil's leading public health research foundation, cited by the Health Ministry, found that alcohol consumption cost R$ 18.8 billion in 2019, the most recent figure available: R$ 1.1 billion in direct federal spending on hospitalizations and outpatient procedures in the SUS, the country's public health system, and R$ 17.7 billion in productivity losses from premature deaths and sick leave. For smoking, the ministry puts the indirect cost at R$ 86.3 billion a year and total spending at R$ 153.5 billion, equal to 1.6% of GDP, against roughly R$ 8 billion collected yearly from cigarette sales. For ultra-processed drinks such as soft drinks, sports drinks and powdered juice mixes, the estimated annual cost to the SUS is nearly R$ 3 billion.The 2023 tax reform and industry pushbackThe selective tax is one of three levies created by the consumption tax reform approved by Congress in 2023, alongside the federal CBS and the state and municipal IBS. The CBS, which replaces PIS and Cofins and part of the IPI, is expected to raise R$ 636 billion in 2027. According to InfoMoney, the bill containing the sin tax also projects a primary surplus of R$ 18.6 billion next year, which would be the first positive federal result in five years. A Tax Foundation survey cited by G1 indicates that total consumption taxes in Brazil will reach about 28% in 2033 once the new system is fully in place, above the 19.4% average of OECD countries.Domestic producers reject the plan. Industry groups say these products are already heavily taxed in Brazil and argue that higher levies would squeeze profit margins, with likely pass-through to prices, layoffs and a boost to the illicit market.For consumers, nothing changes at the checkout for now. The tax only takes effect if Congress approves the regulation, which has not yet been sent, and the government itself promises to keep the current burden during the transition, with no defined end date. Those who want to follow the issue can track the regulation bill in Congress; and for anyone considering cutting back on cigarettes, alcohol or soft drinks, the Health Ministry's cost figures show the scale of the health risks attached to these products, whatever happens to the tax.

A minister at Brazil's top electoral court, Estela Aranha, on Sunday (Aug. 30) suspended a campaign ad by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that presented a mock "resume" of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and called him a "ghost employee". The injunction, granted in a case filed by Flávio Bolsonaro himself on Saturday, remains in force until the full court of the TSE, the Superior Electoral Court, rules on the merits.The piece, titled "Conheça o currículo de Flávio Bolsonaro" ("Meet Flávio Bolsonaro's resume"), first aired on Saturday in Lula's opening televised program of the season. According to CNN Brasil, it claims the senator would have been a "ghost employee" in his civil service career, was "charged with money laundering and criminal organization in the rachadinha scandal" and was "caught by the Federal Police asking for 134 million" in the Banco Master case. G1 adds that the material cites Flávio Bolsonaro's ties to the Rio militia member Adriano da Nóbrega and a request for money from Daniel Vorcaro, a former banker under investigation for billion-real fraud at Banco Master, to finance the film "Dark Horse". G1 describes Flávio Bolsonaro, of the PL party, as Lula's main rival in the 2026 presidential race.What is settled and what is still preliminaryOne point is settled for now: Lula and his coalition cannot broadcast the ad until the case is judged, and the TSE ordered the ruling communicated immediately to the pool of television stations that air the free electoral campaign time, a fixture of Brazilian election seasons. One point remains open: the injunction is preliminary and the case continues. CNN Brasil reports that Flávio Bolsonaro also requested airtime to reply, and Aranha gave him 24 hours to submit the text he wants broadcast. Lula's campaign will then be formally notified to respond, and the case goes to the electoral prosecutor general for an opinion before the full bench rules.In her reasoning, Aranha wrote that the ad "exceeds the limits of admissible political criticism" and builds a narrative tying the senator to criminal organizations "without any concrete data, formal investigation or legal charge supporting the allegations". On the rachadinha, a salary-splitting scheme investigated in his former legislative office, the minister found that the ad starts from a true fact, the charges once filed against him, yet omits that they were shelved with no conviction, which she called a "grave decontextualization"."The ad does not limit itself to criticizing the candidate's public record. On the contrary, it presents voters with a supposed 'resume' of the representative, drawn up with a documentary appearance and tied to the narration of the accusations. The harmful potential comes not only from the sentences considered in isolation, but from the interaction between text, image and the communicative context of the ad."For voters, the case offers a practical takeaway. The suspension is provisional: the material can return to the air if the full TSE bench rules otherwise. The court publishes its decisions, which can be tracked on the tribunal's website, and any accusation circulating in campaign material deserves a check against the original record before it is shared.

Federal transfers to Brazil's comunidades terapêuticas, private facilities that treat alcohol and drug dependence through abstinence and long residential stays, jumped from R$ 6.2 million in the first half of 2024 to R$ 33.3 million in the same period of 2026, an increase of 437%. The figures come from a report by Desinstitute, a human rights and mental health organization, and were reported by Folha de S.Paulo. According to the report, the growth is happening without public indicators showing whether the model works.The study drew on open data from the federal Transparency Portal, extracted on July 1, 2026, and covered 165 institutions with 4,555 publicly funded beds. Among the indicators that are not publicly available are occupancy rates, readmissions, referrals to the health network and deaths occurring inside the facilities. One caveat applies: the data gap makes it impossible to confirm or to rule out the model's effectiveness, because there is simply no official evaluation of outcomes. For the report's authors, the problem is precisely paying without measuring."The government has, in practice, been paying for the availability of beds, not for proven care results," psychologist Lúcio Costa, Desinstitute's executive director, told Folha. In his assessment, the lack of efficacy criteria should block the expansion of beds and the continuation of the transfers themselves.What the numbers do not capture appears in individual accounts. Eduardo Real, 39, went through 14 stays in therapeutic communities over 15 years, in a cycle between crack use and homelessness. He told Folha he suffered beatings, forced labor, homophobia and religious racism against his candomblé faith. Since 2020 he has been treated at a Caps, the community psychosocial care centers that anchor Brazil's public mental health network, under a harm reduction approach, and has gone seven years without drug use or internment. He is now a public health master's student at the University of São Paulo and helped found the National Movement of Victims of Therapeutic Communities in 2022. These are personal testimonies, with no representative sampling, but they converge with findings from earlier inspections.In a study released in June 2025, Desinstitute analyzed 251 news reports published throughout 2023 and cataloged allegations ranging from unlawful imprisonment and forged medical prescriptions to slave-like labor, medication without consent and compulsory internment without a medical report or court order. Inspections by the MNPCT, Brazil's federal torture prevention body, have found bedrooms with external locks and wooden beams barring doors at a therapeutic community in Guarulhos, in São Paulo state, as shown in images reproduced by Folha.Where to seek helpFor those seeking treatment, the public network offers the Caps and the Caps AD units, which focus on alcohol and drug care with free outpatient services through the SUS, Brazil's universal public health system. The nearest unit can be located through the municipal health department. Reports of mistreatment, unlawful confinement or forced labor in therapeutic communities can be filed through Disque 100, the federal human rights hotline, or directly with state prosecutors.

Researchers at Brazil's National Cancer Institute (INCA), working with the Fiocruz foundation and the University of Brasilia (UnB), have developed two humanized versions of CAR-T cell therapy and validated them in laboratory tests and in mice, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology. The goal is to produce one of the most advanced cancer treatments in Brazil at a lower cost. Today the full treatment is only available in the private health system, at R$ 2 million to R$ 2.7 million (roughly US$ 370,000 to US$ 500,000) per patient.The results released so far are preclinical, meaning the technology has not yet been tested in humans. That is the line between what is confirmed and what remains a promise, and the researchers themselves stress this caveat in the article they published on G1.What the tests showedIn lab assays, the two versions, named H1 and H2, killed cancer cells as efficiently as the original therapy, even when CD19, the protein the treatment targets on tumor cells, was present in reduced amounts on the cell surface. The researchers also observed the formation of memory cells, which are essential for the treatment's effect to last longer in the body.In mouse experiments, the H1 version controlled the cancer durably and kept the animals alive for a period comparable to the conventional therapy. H2 showed weaker binding to CD19 and signs of immune cell exhaustion. H1 was therefore selected as the candidate to move forward to clinical trials in humans.CAR-T therapy is considered the fifth pillar of cancer treatment. In it, a patient's own immune cells are collected, genetically reprogrammed to recognize the tumor, and returned to the body. Its impact has already been measured in patients: before CAR-T, people with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma had a response rate of 26%, with 7% complete remission and a median survival of six months, according to the largest international review on the subject. A study published this year in Blood Advances found that after CAR-T, three-year overall survival rose from 10% to 59%, and progression-free survival from 6% to 48%.Why the Brazilian version could cost lessTwo barriers drive up the price of the therapy: the viral vectors used in production and the recognition protein, derived from a mouse antibody. The Brazilian team replaced the viral vector with a non-viral system and modified the molecule to make it more similar to a human protein, reducing the risk that the patient's immune system will reject the modified cells. According to the newspaper A TARDE, the research received funding from Decit-CNPq, FAPDF, Capes, Faperj and the Inova Fiocruz program.In practical terms, nothing changes immediately for patients. Offering the therapy through the SUS, Brazil's public health system, depends on steps that are still ahead: clinical trials in humans, registration with Anvisa (the national health regulator) and evaluation by Conitec, the commission that decides which treatments the public system will cover. People living with leukemias or lymphomas should talk to their oncologist about options already approved in Brazil and about the possibility of joining ongoing CAR-T clinical trials in the country.

Brazil's federal audit court, the TCU, will review how the Education Ministry (MEC) and its evaluation agency, the Inep, authorize new medical schools and approve extra seats in existing ones. The audit was requested by the Senate after the first edition of the Enamed, a national exam that assesses the quality of medical training, according to G1.The request was approved in April by the Senate's oversight committee, as reported by Agência Senado. The proposal, authored by Senator Dr. Hiran (PP-RR) with a favorable opinion from Senator Marcos Pontes (PL-SP), asks the TCU to examine every MEC authorization process since 2018. Auditors are expected to look at the clinical infrastructure and faculty qualifications of the institutions, the supply of medical residency positions, and whether the schools' owners have the financial capacity to support the number of courses and seats already approved. On-site inspections across several regions, including schools authorized through court injunctions, and public hearings are also planned.The Enamed results show why the issue drew attention. Of the 351 courses evaluated, 107 received grades 1 or 2, levels considered unsatisfactory and subject to sanctions. That is roughly 30% of the total. Under MEC rules, eight schools are barred from enrolling new students, 13 must cut their seats in half, 33 must reduce seats by 25%, and another 45 cannot expand their classes. All of them are suspended from Fies, the federal student loan fund, and other federal programs.Court battle and caveats about the examThe numbers come with significant caveats. Because this was the first Enamed, private higher education associations, including Abmes and Abrafi, have gone to court claiming a lack of transparency, since the evaluation criteria were only published after the exam was administered. In early August, the head of the 1st Region Federal Appeals Court, Judge Maria do Carmo Cardoso, granted an injunction suspending the penalties. On Wednesday (19), however, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) overturned that ruling and reinstated the MEC sanctions while the case is judged on its merits.For current and prospective medical students, the practical effects are limited for now. The sanctions target institutions, not students already enrolled, and diplomas from penalized schools remain valid. What a student can do is check their course's Enamed grade and confirm whether the school is among those sanctioned, information published by the MEC and the Inep, especially before signing a Fies loan. The TCU audit has no announced deadline, and its findings could force a revision of the rules for opening new medical courses, which would shape the next incoming classes.

Two state-level polls released this week by the Brazilian pollster Real Time Big Data show contrasting pictures of the presidential race in Minas Gerais and Paraná. In Minas Gerais, Brazil's second-largest electorate, President Lula (PT) has 46% of voting intentions against 44% for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) in a hypothetical runoff, a gap inside the margin of error, according to the newspaper Estado de Minas. In Paraná, in the south of the country, Flávio leads the first round with 44% against Lula's 30%, the portal R7 reported.In the Minas runoff scenario, 6% of respondents said they would cast a blank or spoiled ballot, and 4% did not know or declined to answer. In the first round there, Lula leads with 39%, followed by Flávio Bolsonaro at 34%. Former governor Romeu Zema (Novo) has 9%, Renan Santos (Missão) has 5% and Pablo Marçal (PRTB) has 4%, while Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) and Augusto Cury (Avante) register 2% each. The survey interviewed 2,000 voters between August 22 and 26, with a margin of error of two percentage points and a 95% confidence level, under protocol BR-03147/2026 at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). Statistically, Lula's two-point edge in the runoff amounts to a technical tie: either candidate could be numerically ahead.In Paraná, a wide lead for FlávioThe Paraná poll, released on Friday (28), shows Flávio Bolsonaro at 44% in the prompted first-round scenario, in which respondents are shown a list of candidates. Lula has 30%, and Renan Santos, Pablo Marçal and Ronaldo Caiado are tied at 4% each. Zema has 2% and Augusto Cury, 1%. In the spontaneous survey, with no names offered, Flávio registers 25% and Lula 22%, a technical tie, while 35% say they are undecided. In the projected runoff, the senator would take 52% against the president's 34%. The institute interviewed 1,600 voters between August 24 and 27, with a two-point margin of error, under TSE protocol BR-07171/2026.The Real Time figures diverge in part from those of Quaest, which polled the same states this week for Globo and its affiliated stations, according to G1. Quaest shows a technical tie in Minas already in the first round (Flávio at 31% and Lula at 30%, against Real Time's 39% to 34%) and a 41% to 23% lead for Flávio in Paraná. The differences reflect distinct methodologies and fieldwork periods. One point the two institutes share is the high share of undecided voters: Quaest puts it at 17% in both states, a bloc that can still shift before the first round on October 4 and the runoff on October 25.Opinion polls capture the moment the interviews were conducted. Before reading too much into any number, voters can check three things: the margin of error (two points in these surveys, which makes small gaps statistically neutral), the fieldwork dates and the poll's registration with the TSE, searchable on the court's website by protocol number. With free campaign advertising on TV and radio beginning this Friday (28), polling institutes are expected to update these scenarios in the coming weeks.

A study published on Thursday (27) in the journal Science describes how genetic mutations linked to severe forms of autism change the way proteins interact inside cells of the developing brain. The work, led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), produced what its authors present as the largest molecular map of autism ever built and opens the way to testing drugs for the condition, according to reports by Folha de S.Paulo, in partnership with The New York Times, and by the trade publication Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN).The team, led by UCSF's Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) and its psychiatry department, mapped the proteins encoded by 100 genes associated with autism and identified more than 1,800 interactions among them, 87% of which had never been described before. The researchers also analyzed 54 mutations found in patients and combined that data with structural models from AlphaFold and experiments in human brain organoids, small lab-grown clusters of brain cells, and in embryos of Xenopus, a frog used in research. That allowed them to pinpoint exactly where each mutation breaks the connections between proteins.The study's central finding is convergence: mutations in different genes can disrupt the same protein complex. In one example cited in the paper, mutations in the FOXP1 and FOXP2 genes disturb the same interaction between the FOXP1 and FOXP4 proteins, which speeds up the maturation of cortical neurons and raises the excitability of neural circuits in the organoids. The practical implication is that, in the future, a single drug might treat several genetically distinct forms of autism, instead of requiring a different therapy for each mutation.The result matters most for what specialists call profound autism. In about 30% of people with autism, those with the most severe disabilities, scientists have already identified rare single-gene mutations that are probably associated with the disorder. "This study maps the exact molecular machinery that is altered, including the specific protein interactions, down to the interfaces we can target with a drug," Nevan Krogan, director of QBI and a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, told GEN. Matthew State, chair of UCSF's psychiatry department and a senior author of the study, said the work "opens up a whole new world of possibilities for therapeutic targets".What is confirmed and what remains hypothesisThe two levels should be kept apart. What the study firmly delivers is the map itself: the protein interactions and the exact points where mutations break them, observed in the laboratory. What remains preliminary is the therapeutic promise. No drug has been tested in patients based on these results, and lab-grown organoids reproduce only part of how a real brain works. Dan Geschwind, a UCLA neurogeneticist who did not take part in the work, summed up the current stage to Folha: "This amounts to mapping uncharted territory, which is really necessary to move biology forward."For families in Brazil and elsewhere, the practical advice does not change. The care available today is still early diagnosis and interventions backed by scientific evidence, such as behavioral, speech and occupational therapy, along with regular follow-up. Findings like these point to a promising research path, reinforced by a US$ 46 million grant that QBI received from the Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) initiative to turn the map into drug candidate molecules, but any concrete treatment is still years away. Until then, caution also applies to unproven therapies that promise a cure for autism: no approved drug today treats the genetic causes of the condition.

The special administrative court of the TRF-4, the federal appeals court that covers Brazil's three southern states, ruled on Thursday (27) that federal judge Eduardo Appio should lose his seat and spend five years on disponibilidade, a forced leave from the bench, after an investigation into the suspected theft of three bottles of champagne from a supermarket in Blumenau, in the state of Santa Catarina. The decision passed by 15 votes to 2, according to G1, and still has to be reviewed by the CNJ, the National Council of Justice, the body that oversees Brazilian judges and can confirm or reverse the removal.What is confirmedAccording to reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, Appio is suspected of taking three bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne, priced at R$ 399 each (about R$ 1,200 in total), from the Giassi supermarket chain, in episodes recorded on 20 September and on 4 and 18 October 2025. Surveillance footage described by G1 shows the judge placing a bottle in a shopping bag and walking past the checkout without paying; in one recording, security guards stop him in the parking lot. Police identified him through the license plate of the car he drove away in.Santa Catarina's civil police referred the case to the court on 23 October. A week later, the TRF-4 temporarily suspended Appio and put the investigation under seal. In November, the judges opened a formal disciplinary case and lifted the secrecy. In Thursday's ruling, the court says the conduct attributed to Appio breaches the duty of irreproachable behavior even in private life and is incompatible with the dignity expected of a judge.What is still openThe sources disagree on one point. G1 reports that the leave was ordered without pay, while Folha says Appio will receive a salary proportional to his years of service during the five years. Both agree the measure ends earlier if the removal is confirmed. In a statement, Appio contested the sanction: "Thirty-two years dedicated to honest public service, without a single day of leave. The decision (taken by majority) is unfair and disproportionate. I have faith in God and in the institutions". His lawyer, Eduardo Maines, told Folha the defense will only present its case within the proceedings.Appio became nationally known in 2023, when he took over the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, responsible for the remaining cases of Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), the corruption probe that reshaped Brazilian politics, replacing former judge Sergio Moro. He lasted just over three months in the role and was removed after appeals judge Marcelo Malucelli alleged that his son had received a threatening phone call attributed to Appio. The CNJ closed that disciplinary case in January 2024, after an agreement in which the judge admitted improper conduct without detailing it. Since then, he had been working in a court handling social security cases.For anyone following the case, two tracks matter now. The first is the CNJ, which will receive the case file and decide whether to confirm the removal, the harshest sanction available for a Brazilian judge. The second is the criminal track: according to Folha, the TRF-4 will send the records to the Federal Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney General's Office because it sees signs of a crime. Until then, Appio remains away from the bench, as he has been since October 2025.

Nine in ten women in Brazil's Federal District, home to the capital Brasília, say they have suffered psychological violence (91%), and 82% report having been victims of physical violence. The figures come from an overview of violence against women in the district released by the Federal District's Institute of Research and Statistics together with the Women's Secretariat, according to a report by G1. The data are drawn from the 11th edition of the National Survey on Violence Against Women, conducted by the DataSenado research institute with the Women's Observatory Against Violence, with fieldwork carried out between May 16 and July 8, 2025.Among victims, 48% were assaulted by their partner, and 31% of the district's female population reported having been attacked by a man, the most frequent profile of aggressor in reports of the most severe violence. About the moment of the assault, 51% of the women said the aggressor was jealous, and 48% said he was upset about the end or attempted end of the relationship. For 73% of respondents, the aggression weighed heavily in the breakup. Anthropologist Beatriz Accioly, a public policy manager at Instituto Natura, adds a methodological caveat: the figure does not show that breakups cause violence. What it indicates, she says, is that separation can be a critical moment when control and possessiveness become especially visible.The "protection paradox"The survey also measured what women know about the protection network, and a contrast emerges. In the Federal District, 98% of women know or have heard of the women's police station (Delegacia da Mulher), and 28% say they know the Maria da Penha Law, Brazil's landmark 2006 domestic violence law, above the national average of 21%. When asked about concrete instruments, the picture changes: 78% say they know little or nothing about urgent protective measures."This shows that the visibility of the network and the ability to navigate it are not the same thing," Accioly told G1. "If she does not know that a protective measure exists, that possibility does not even enter the set of alternatives she can consider when facing violence."Rafaela Mitre, coordinator of the Women's Defense Unit at the Federal District's Public Defender's Office, says the result matches what the institution sees in its services. According to her, many women arrive without knowing about protective measures and believe they must necessarily file a police report or hire a lawyer to request them. The risk, Mitre says, is that a victim stays in a violent situation believing there is no way out, or fails to recognize that control, stalking, threats and psychological violence can also justify court protection.There are limits to interpreting the data. The survey records self-reported experiences and, as Accioly notes, was not designed to explain individually why a woman stays in a violent relationship: leaving involves risk, emotional and family ties, children, housing and income. Staying, therefore, should not be read as ignorance of one's rights.Where to seek helpUrgent protective measures are court orders under the Maria da Penha Law that can, for example, remove the aggressor from the home and bar him from approaching the victim. A request can be made at any police station, including specialized women's stations, or directly to the courts with support from the Public Defender's Office, without requiring a private lawyer or a prior police report, as the district's Public Defender's Office explains. In situations of immediate risk, the guidance is to call 190 (Military Police). The federal women's hotline, Ligue 180, operates 24 hours, is free of charge and provides guidance on rights and protection services across the country.

False messages circulating on social media prompted Brazilians to seek the Pneumo 23 vaccine at primary health clinics under the mistaken claim that the shot had been opened to anyone over the age of 58 in Brazil's public healthcare network (SUS). Municipal health authorities in São Paulo clarified that national vaccination guidelines have not changed and that the vaccine remains restricted to specific clinical groups.The misinformation led to confusion and unnecessary demand at basic health units across São Paulo, where individuals reported arriving at clinics only to be turned away. Health officials stressed that the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine is not distributed to the general adult population based solely on age.Eligibility rules and medical requirementsUnder official protocols from the National Immunization Program, Pneumo 23 is designated strictly for two categories: adults aged 60 and older living in long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes, and individuals aged 2 and older with severe underlying conditions, including immunodeficiencies, chronic lung diseases, and congenital heart defects.According to Simone Garcia, a nurse with São Paulo's Municipal Immunization Program, receiving the vaccine requires a medical order. Patients visiting primary clinics or Reference Centers for Special Immunobiologicals (Cries) must present a clinical report detailing the medical indication for either the Pneumo 13 or Pneumo 23 vaccine, which is then formally reviewed before administration.For young children, pneumococcal protection follows standard routine schedules: Pneumo 20 at 2 months of age, Pneumo 10 at 4 months, and a Pneumo 20 booster at 12 months.Patients managing qualifying chronic conditions should consult their attending physician to secure the required medical report before visiting a clinic. Individuals without clinical indications or long-term care residence should not seek the vaccine at local health units, helping prevent unnecessary overcrowding.

The world's four leading cardiology societies published on Friday (28) the Fifth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction, a document that retires the numbered classification of heart attacks (types 1 through 5) and instead groups cases by the mechanism that injured the heart. The text appeared in the European Heart Journal and was presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2026 congress in Munich, Germany. One of its central messages is blunt: an abnormal blood test for troponin, the protein released when heart muscle is damaged, does not by itself confirm a heart attack.The document was drawn up jointly by the ESC, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA) and the World Heart Federation (WHF), with specialists from 12 countries and five continents, according to Brazilian news portal G1. Citing figures from the document itself, magazine Veja reports that the estimated prevalence of myocardial infarction is 3.8% among people under 60 and 9.5% in older adults, and the disease remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide.From five types to three groupsUnder the new structure, a primary heart attack begins with an acute problem in the coronary artery itself. The most common cause is still the rupture or erosion of an atherosclerotic plaque followed by a clot, but the group also includes spontaneous artery dissection, embolism and vasospasm. A secondary heart attack occurs when another illness breaks the balance between the oxygen reaching the heart and what the organ needs, as in severe anemia, a sharp drop in blood pressure or certain tachycardias. A procedure-related heart attack arises as a complication of a cardiac intervention, such as a catheterization or bypass surgery, within a window of up to 30 days.It is in the secondary group that the definition tightens its criteria. According to G1, having an illness capable of causing the imbalance plus elevated troponin is no longer enough: doctors must gather evidence of ischemia and heart muscle injury consistent with a heart attack, separating patients who truly had one from those whose heart was injured by another process. The revision also abolished the old type 3 and dropped the troponin multiples (five or ten times the reference limit) once used to classify procedure-related cases, which now rely on objective imaging criteria. Cardiovascular surgeon Ricardo Kazunori, of the BP hospital in São Paulo, told G1 that tying the classification to the origin of the event is the most direct advance of the revision. Elzo Mattar, of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC) and a professor at the Famerp medical school, pointed to severe conditions such as septic shock, in which a heart attack appears as a complication of another disease. Veja also noted that spontaneous coronary artery dissection, now listed among primary infarctions, affects predominantly women and is still considered underdiagnosed.What is confirmed and what remains expectationWhat is confirmed is the publication of the new consensus and the retirement of the numbered classification. The practical impact, however, remains an expectation of the authors: the stated hope is for more consistent diagnoses across hospitals and countries, something that can only be measured as the document is adopted. In Brazil, the revision lands amid a worrying figure: hospital admissions for heart attack among patients up to 39 years old more than doubled over the past 15 years, according to data presented by G1. The new definition does not change that trend, but it should make the count of true cases more precise.For patients, the response to symptoms does not change. Chest pain or pressure, shortness of breath, cold sweat or sudden malaise call for immediate evaluation at an emergency service. What the revision makes clear, according to the specialists interviewed, is that diagnosing a heart attack is a clinical task: the blood test is an important piece, but it must come together with symptoms, an electrocardiogram and, when needed, imaging of the coronary arteries.

Writer and psychiatrist Augusto Cury, the presidential candidate of the Avante party, has registered a 200-page government plan with Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE), containing 18 structural projects, according to Metrópoles. The document, filed on August 13, pairs three far-reaching institutional reforms, including a shift to semi-presidentialism, with sector proposals such as expanding telemedicine in the SUS, Brazil's public health system, and teaching emotion management in schools.Institutional reformsOn the institutional side, the plan proposes a transition to semi-presidentialism, a model in which the president shares governing with a prime minister. It also foresees an overhaul of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), cutting the bench to nine justices, setting fixed eight-year terms and having nominations made by the legal professions themselves (judges, prosecutors and the bar association), which would strip the president of that power, Metrópoles reports. Terra, which also reviewed the document, highlights the term limits at the STF and a proposed 5x2 work schedule. A third track, called the New Economic Diplomacy, would raise the Foreign Ministry to a status similar to the U.S. State Department.Health and educationIn health, the plan bets on telemedicine to relieve pressure on the SUS, with a target of care within 30 minutes for basic cases, and includes a reform of the system, according to Terra. In education, Cury proposes full-time schools that teach, beyond technical content, emotion management, financial literacy and entrepreneurship, with policies to welcome neurodivergent students, according to Metrópoles.Other proposals in the document include training 10 million new micro-entrepreneurs to respond to unemployment linked to artificial intelligence and robotics, a credit line with interest of 5% to 6% a year for small businesses, five export free zones, panic buttons and drones to protect women, and integrating police forces with artificial intelligence.Cury, 67, is running for public office for the first time and declared R$ 242 million in assets to the TSE, Metrópoles reported. Regarded as the most-read Brazilian writer of the past decade, with more than 30 million books sold, he polls at 1% in the BBC News Brasil poll aggregator, which compiles surveys released through August 21. The candidate describes himself as having "a capitalist mind and a social heart" and says he would not seek reelection.It is worth separating what is confirmed from what remains a promise: the proposals are in the document filed with the TSE, which is public on the court's DivulgaCand platform, but changes such as semi-presidentialism and the STF overhaul would require constitutional amendments approved by Congress. Neither Terra nor Metrópoles cites cost estimates or a timeline for the 30-minute telemedicine target. Voters can read the full plan on the TSE website and check the other candidates' proposals on the same platform before the first round in October.

An internal report from the Hospital Regional Alfredo Mesquita Filho, a state-run public hospital in Macaíba, in the metropolitan area of Natal, capital of Rio Grande do Norte, documented an outbreak of multidrug-resistant bacteria between May and July this year, with 15 patients infected or colonized and eight deaths recorded in the period. The post-incident document, completed on August 11 by the hospital's infection control commission and patient safety unit, classifies the episode as an "outbreak of healthcare-related infection by multidrug-resistant microorganisms", according to reporting by g1 and Folha de S.Paulo.What the documents confirm: there were 16 records of infection or colonization involving 15 patients, because one patient appears twice on the spreadsheet, from samples collected on different dates. The bacteria identified were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae, species known for resisting multiple antibiotics in hospital settings. The first four cases arrived from other facilities, including patients transferred from Hospital Belarmina Monte, in São Gonçalo do Amarante, and Hospital Lindolfo Gomes Vidal, in Santo Antônio. The first infection acquired inside the hospital itself dates to June 14, and the investigation describes a progression "compatible with the occurrence of cross-transmission" between the ICU and the internal medicine ward, the two units affected. One ICU patient, infected with two of the bacteria, died on July 22. The last death occurred on July 28.What remains preliminary: the link between the bacteria and the eight deaths. The report speaks of a "severe scenario of infections and colonizations, culminating in the occurrence of eight deaths", but the state health department (Sesap) says the deaths are still under investigation and that it is not possible to conclude they were caused by the microorganisms. In an interview with g1, the state's deputy health secretary, Leidiane Queiroz, said: "I took care to ask the hospital team, and the team did not certify that the deaths were caused by the bacteria". According to her, the presence of these microorganisms can worsen the condition of already frail patients, which by itself does not allow the deaths to be attributed to them.Failures identified in the reportThe document attributes the spread of the outbreak to a combination of structural, operational and care-related failures. Rounds by the infection control commission and the patient safety unit identified "severe operational and procedural fragility" in the ICU and the internal medicine ward. Among the problems listed:chronic staff shortage and work overload;no dedicated isolation beds;damp and mold on ward walls, with damaged furniture shared between patients;improper handling of invasive devices such as probes and catheters;cleaning failures and sharing of care materials between patients;caregivers moving between different beds and incomplete adherence to protective equipment protocols.Sesap says an action plan was put in place in May, when the first contamination was identified, and that it considers the situation under control. Contacted by g1, the hospital's general director, Patrícia Emannuely, said she would not comment and that the facility follows the department's position.Two terms in the report are worth separating. According to infectious disease specialist Kleber Luz, interviewed by g1, colonization means the bacteria is present in the body without causing symptoms; infection means it causes clinical changes or altered test results. The distinction matters because not every colonized patient will fall ill, but every colonized patient can transmit the microorganism. For anyone visiting or accompanying patients in any hospital, the measures that reduce transmission are well known: clean your hands when entering and leaving the room, do not touch probes, dressings or catheters, follow staff instructions on gloves and gowns, and avoid moving between beds. Outside the hospital, taking antibiotics only with a prescription and through the full course of treatment helps slow the selection of resistant bacteria.

The value of irregular weight-loss pens seized by the Receita Federal, Brazil's federal tax and customs authority, jumped from R$ 4 million to more than R$ 80 million in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, an increase of more than 20-fold. The figures were presented on Thursday (27) in Brasília at the Mercado Ilegal (Illegal Market) seminar, hosted by the newspapers O Globo, Valor Econômico and Extra and the radio station CBN, according to Folha de S.Paulo.One caveat matters: the Receita did not say how many units that value represents. The total refers to medicines with no registration or sales authorization from Anvisa, the national health regulator, which makes their entry into Brazil illegal.Regional data help size the phenomenon. According to CNN Brasil, at the Paraguay border in Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, alone, 76,112 pens and ampoules of semaglutide and tirzepatide were seized in the first half of the year, against 24,994 in all of 2025. The record came in June, with 25,828 items. The price gap explains part of the flow: a tirzepatide ampoule costs about R$ 340 in Paraguay, while Mounjaro, the version authorized in Brazil, starts at R$ 1,400.Hidden in sneakers and shampoo bottlesAccording to the Receita, the medicines arrive hidden inside shampoo bottles, sneaker soles and hollow spaces in vehicle bodies, often without the refrigeration needed to keep the product stable. Tax auditor Flávio Bernardino de Carvalho describes a scattered flow that mixes organized crime with people acting alone:"Scheduled buses, cars, marketplace company trucks, tourists. It comes in every possible way. There is organized crime and there are individuals on their own. It is very scattered."Also according to the auditor, interviewed by CNN Brasil, weight-loss drugs are now the second-largest category in seizure value in the fiscal region covering Paraná and Santa Catarina, behind only cell phones. The Receita has also identified an expansion of irregular supply on marketplace platforms. For Erivelto Moysés Torrico Alencar, deputy regional superintendent of the 1st Fiscal Region, the size of this trade shows flaws in the platforms' control over sellers and advertised products.On the demand side, a survey by Serasa Experian shows that online orders of GLP-1 medicines, the class widely used for weight loss, grew 149.3% in the first half of 2026, from 547,249 to 1,364,354 requests totaling more than R$ 2.3 billion. A study by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), published in the journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, recorded rising searches for products without sanitary registration, such as TG, Tirzec, Lipoless and retatrutide. Auditor Flávio Bernardino notes that a possible future patent break on tirzepatide could reduce interest in the Paraguayan product, as happened with other medicines, but that remains a hypothesis, not a confirmed fact.For consumers, the practical guidance is straightforward: buy these medicines only at licensed pharmacies with a medical prescription, check the product's registration on Anvisa's website, and be suspicious of prices far below the market or sales through social media and marketplaces. Products transported without refrigeration can lose effectiveness and pose health risks. It is worth remembering that medicine smuggling is a crime against public health under article 273 of the Brazilian Penal Code, punishable by 10 to 15 years in prison.

Cell therapy using genetically modified T cells, known as CAR-T, is showing solid results in treating blood cancers that fail to respond to standard treatments. Data published in the scientific journal Blood Advances indicates that among patients with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the three-year overall survival rate rose from 10% to 59% after CAR-T therapy, while progression-free survival increased from 6% to 48%. Before this technology, median survival in these cases stood at roughly six months, with complete remission rates of just 7%.Researcher Martín Hernán Bonamino, head of the Cellular and Gene Therapy Program at Brazil's National Cancer Institute (INCA), highlighted in The Conversation and reported by Folha de S.Paulo that the technique re-engineers patient immune cells to target tumor antigens. However, commercial imported versions costing over R$ 2 million (about $350,000) per patient remain out of reach for most Brazilians and place a severe strain on healthcare budgets.To enable distribution through Brazil's public healthcare system, the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde), domestic academic centers are creating proprietary production methods. Projects led by INCA, the University of São Paulo (USP), the University of Brasília (UnB), and the Albert Einstein Israeli Hospital aim to manufacture vectors and cell lines locally, sharply cutting costs and national dependence on foreign supply chains.While clinical trial data is encouraging, broad rollout across public hospitals requires further regulatory clearance. The Brazilian versions remain in regulated clinical trial phases with health agency Anvisa, meaning the treatment is not yet universally accessible across routine oncology wards.Patients and families facing refractory lymphomas or leukemias should consult their treating hematologists. Oncologists can assess whether a patient qualifies for ongoing approved clinical trials in Brazil or recommend verified standard care protocols within the SUS network while national manufacturing expands.

Former banker Daniel Vorcaro, the ex-owner of Banco Master, gave a deposition to Brazil's Federal Police on Friday (28) and denied that any corruption took place involving employees of the country's Central Bank. The hearing was held by videoconference from the Papudinha jail in the Federal District, where he is being held. According to his defense, it lasted four and a half hours. The session had been scheduled for Thursday (27) but was postponed because of technical problems with the connection.It is worth separating what is confirmed from what remains an allegation. Confirmed: the deposition happened, it was Vorcaro's first interrogation since his preventive detention in March, and it is part of an inquiry into his relationship with former Central Bank supervisors Paulo Sérgio Neves de Souza and Bellini Santana. The allegation, still under investigation and with no formal conclusion, is that the two employees received financial advantages and acted in favor of Master while the bank faced a liquidity crisis and was under the Central Bank's supervision.What the police are investigatingAccording to the Federal Police and the Central Bank, heard by G1, there are indications that the two former supervisors acted to benefit Vorcaro in internal discussions about oversight, financial rescue and measures that could affect the institution's future. CNN Brasil reported that police are investigating whether the employees worked as "spies" for the banker inside the monetary authority, passing along privileged information. Vorcaro denied receiving any such information.In a statement released after the deposition, the defense said this was the first opportunity the former banker had to answer the investigation's questions directly:"On that occasion, Daniel answered clearly and consistently all the questions put to him, leaving no inquiry unaddressed. It was demonstrated, in particular, that there was no act of corruption involving the employees mentioned in the ongoing investigation."The statement adds that Vorcaro remains willing to provide broader and deeper clarifications, as long as he is effectively given the chance to cooperate. That point matters because, according to CNN Brasil, the deposition came after the formal rejection of two plea bargain proposals (known in Brazil as colaboração premiada) submitted by the defense, by both the Federal Police and the Prosecutor-General's Office.Arrests and the liquidation of MasterVorcaro has been in preventive detention since March of this year. Before that, he had already been arrested in November 2025, in the first phase of Operation Compliance Zero, but was released days later by a decision of the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region. Banco Master, in turn, was liquidated by the Central Bank, a measure that removed the institution from the market.For readers following what comes next: the inquiry remains open, and the police may still hear other witnesses and review the content of Friday's testimony. Any new plea bargain negotiation, which the defense says it wants, would depend on the Federal Police and federal prosecutors. Until then, the accusations against the former Central Bank employees and against Vorcaro remain suspicions under investigation, with no formal charges filed in this specific inquiry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the official end of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda on Thursday (27), after the country completed 42 consecutive days without a single new confirmed case. The announcement was made jointly with the Africa CDC, the African Union's disease control agency. What is confirmed According to the WHO, the last confirmed Ebola patient in Uganda was discharged on July 16. It was an imported case from another country, and no onward transmission linked to it was documented. The 42-day window equals two full cycles of the virus's maximum 21-day incubation period and is the standard criterion the agency uses to declare an outbreak over. In total, Uganda recorded 20 cases of Ebola and two deaths, nearly all involving people who had traveled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the AFP news agency. The WHO's Africa regional office reports that the first patient was seen on May 8 at a clinic in Arua, a town in northern Uganda on the DRC border, and later traveled to the capital, Kampala, where the diagnosis was confirmed. The virus responsible belongs to the Bundibugyo species. "Uganda has completed 42 days since the last confirmed Ebola patient, imported from another country, was discharged on July 16, 2026, with no subsequent documented transmission, marking the end of the outbreak," the WHO said in a statement. The DRC outbreak goes on The end of the outbreak in Uganda does not mean the regional emergency is over. In the DRC, where the outbreak was declared on May 15, there have been more than 5,600 confirmed cases and more than 2,700 deaths, according to AFP. It is the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record. The WHO and the Africa CDC praised the containment measures taken by the Ugandan government, health workers and partners, but urged countries in the region to keep surveillance and preparedness in place, given the risk of new imported cases across the border. Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people and causes hemorrhagic fever. Unlike respiratory viruses such as flu or covid-19, it does not spread through the air, which makes contact tracing and case isolation effective containment tools, as the outcome in Uganda shows. What readers should know: for anyone who has not been to the affected region or had close contact with sick travelers from it, the risk is low. Those traveling to East Africa should avoid contact with the bodily fluids of sick people and with contaminated items. After returning, they should seek immediate medical care if they develop fever, severe headache, vomiting or bleeding within 21 days, and tell the health service about their travel history.

Egyptian pharmaceutical company Minapharm and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) have announced a funding agreement of up to $16.5 million to advance a candidate vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus. The initiative, reported by Folha de S.Paulo from a joint announcement on Thursday, aims to address the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Engineered by ProBioGen, Minapharm's Berlin-based subsidiary, the candidate remains in the preclinical phase. CEPI funding will support laboratory development through Phase 1 clinical trials to be conducted in Africa. This initial clinical stage is designed specifically to assess safety and evaluate immune response in a small cohort of healthy human volunteers, prior to larger trials measuring field efficacy.The project targets a severe therapeutic gap, as approved Ebola vaccines were designed against the Zaire strain and do not provide proven protection against Bundibugyo. According to public health authorities, the outbreak declared on May 15 in the DRC has caused more than 5,600 confirmed cases and over 2,700 deaths.Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), emphasized the strategic need for regional production capabilities:The Bundibugyo virus is now behind the largest Ebola outbreak ever faced by the DRC. A candidate vaccine developed by an African company represents exactly the kind of capacity our continent needs, allowing Africa to develop and manufacture the tools required to protect its population.For health professionals and individuals traveling to areas with active transmission, standard preventive protocols advise avoiding contact with blood, bodily fluids, or items contaminated by symptomatic patients, as well as monitoring for fever, muscle aches, and gastrointestinal symptoms for 21 days after returning from endemic regions.

Brazil will begin tracking patients with type 5 diabetes, a little-known form of the disease linked to malnutrition. The initiative, a first in Brazilian health care and rare worldwide, was confirmed on Wednesday (26) by the SBD (Brazilian Diabetes Society) during a congress in Rio de Janeiro, according to Folha de S.Paulo. The first targets will be the North and Northeast regions, which concentrate the largest share of Brazilians living with food insecurity and malnutrition.What type 5 diabetes isThe condition was described more than 70 years ago and has had other names, such as tropical diabetes and type J diabetes, because the first case was recorded in Jamaica in 1955. In 2025, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recognized the new classification, in practice a renaming of what was called malnutrition-related diabetes. The disease mainly affects teenagers and very thin young adults, with a body mass index below 18.5 to 19, and is more common in low- and middle-income countries such as India, Thailand, Uganda, Ethiopia and Nigeria, according to the SBD.The main risk today is confusion with type 1 diabetes, which also appears early in life and in underweight people. The mechanism, however, is different. In type 1, an autoimmune reaction halts insulin production by the pancreas, and the patient can develop ketoacidosis, an emergency that makes the blood acidic and can be fatal. In type 5, severe calorie and protein malnutrition in the womb or in early childhood reduces the insulin-producing cells, but the body keeps a small reserve of the hormone. For that reason, the SBD explains, these patients do not develop ketoacidosis and usually need smaller insulin doses. "It was unanimously agreed to call this diabetes type 5 because it is different from all others cataloged so far: it occurs in very thin people, usually under 30, who will need a smaller insulin replacement," physician Hermelinda Pedrosa, vice-president of the IDF and an SBD member, told Folha.What is confirmed and what remains a hypothesisThe tracking announcement is the concrete fact so far. The rest remains open. Brazil has no prevalence data on type 5. "There may be cases, but they are possibly labeled as type 1 because of the overlap of characteristics, such as the early age of onset and the low BMI," says physician Fernando Valente, an SBD director, in a text published by the organization. The suspicion heard by Folha is that a relevant number of Brazilians treated as type 1 actually have type 5, which exposes patients to inadequate treatment. International studies indicate the condition is more frequent in men in rural areas, who often never receive the correct diagnosis and accumulate complications such as blindness, kidney and heart problems and lower-limb amputations.The SBD already keeps on its website a type 5 screening form aimed at health professionals, based on the algorithm proposed by the IDF, with clinical criteria to identify suspected cases. The federation has also created a working group to develop, within two years, formal diagnostic criteria and therapeutic guidelines for the disease.For patients, the practical guidance is straightforward. Anyone under 30 who is very thin and lives with a diabetes diagnosis, especially if there was malnutrition in childhood, can raise the topic at the next appointment. The correct diagnosis changes management: besides smaller insulin doses, type 5 treatment includes proper replacement of calories, protein and micronutrients. No medication change should be made on one's own; any adjustment belongs with the doctor following the case.

Brazil's water utilities have asked the courts for a temporary suspension, initially for 90 days, of the obligation to add fluoride to the public water supply. The request was filed by Aesbe, the Brazilian Association of State Sanitation Companies, which sees a risk of running out of fluosilicic acid in the coming months, according to a Folha de S.Paulo report published on Wednesday (26). The cause was a supply halt by fertilizer maker Mosaic, hit by soaring sulfur prices amid the Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.Fluosilicic acid is a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer production, a process that relies on sulfur as a raw material. As sulfur prices climbed, Mosaic stopped supplying the input to water companies. Folha reported that Aesbe is studying imports as an alternative. Water fluoridation has been mandatory in Brazil since a 1974 federal law (law 6.050), and any suspension requires a court order.Aesbe's members include Sabesp (São Paulo), Cagece (Ceará), Cagepa (Paraíba), Cesan (Espírito Santo), Sanepar (Paraná) and BRK. What is confirmed so far is the court request and Mosaic's supply halt. It remains unclear how many systems would actually run out of the input, or how long a suspension might last if granted. The case was also reported by the newspapers O TEMPO and Jornal de Brasília.Impact depends on durationFrom an oral health standpoint, the effect would be gradual. According to Thiago Lucena, a dentist with a master's degree in dentistry from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), fluoride dissolved in tap water protects teeth against acids produced by bacteria and helps remineralize enamel. The association presented no study quantifying the expected rise in cavities; the concern grows with the length of time the population goes without fluoridation."A temporary suspension of fluoridation does not mean people will develop cavities immediately, but it removes an important layer of collective protection," Lucena said.The most exposed groups are children, the elderly and people in situations of socioeconomic vulnerability, for whom fluoridated tap water is often the main source of regular contact with the mineral. Until courts decide and while utility stocks last, the practical advice remains the usual one: brush teeth at least twice a day, a habit that by itself already prevents cavities and gum disease, as the report notes. If the suspension is confirmed in your city, paying closer attention to how children and older adults brush is the simplest protective step.

Brazil's Ministry of Health confirmed this week the country's first recorded death from West Nile Fever: a 77 year old woman from Imbituba, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, according to reporting by DW Brasil published through Folha de S.Paulo. The case has drawn attention because the mosquito borne disease remains little known in Brazil, even as European health authorities report this year's highest number of cases and affected countries in recent memory.According to the Ministry of Health and CNN Brasil, the woman is the second patient with West Nile Fever ever recorded in Santa Catarina. The state's first case, a 56 year old man from Cacador, has already been discharged. Two more confirmed cases come from Sao Paulo state: a 34 year old woman from Ribeirao Preto who had recently traveled to the Amazon region and has recovered, and an 18 year old from Sao Jose do Rio Preto who remains hospitalized. A sixth case, in the northeastern state of Piaui, is still under investigation. Health authorities are still tracing exactly where and how each patient was exposed to the virus, information that remains open rather than settled.West Nile Fever is caused by an arbovirus in the same family as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever, spread through the bite of Culex mosquitoes (common house mosquitoes), which become infected after biting wild birds that carry the virus. Humans and horses are dead end hosts, meaning they do not pass the infection on. The Ministry of Health estimates that about 20 percent of infected people develop symptoms, usually mild ones such as sudden fever, headache, muscle and eye pain, nausea and skin rash. Severe cases involving meningitis, encephalitis or acute flaccid paralysis are rare, but it was precisely a neurological presentation that marked both Santa Catarina cases, according to the state health department.Europe also seeing a riseThe same virus is worrying health authorities in Europe, where circulation has intensified this year. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), cited by DW, 12 European countries have reported cases in 2026, three more than in the same period last year: Albania, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Italy and Greece account for the largest numbers, with 311 and 157 infections respectively. In 21 regions across the continent, this is the first time health authorities have reported the disease. As of August 5, Europe had recorded 12 deaths from the virus this year; the Netherlands, which had not seen a case since 2020, confirmed a new infection the previous week and reported an additional death this past Wednesday, according to the report.There is no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for West Nile Fever, according to the World Health Organization. Care is limited to managing symptoms and, in severe cases, hospital support. As a result, both in Brazil and in Europe, health authorities are focused on epidemiological surveillance and mosquito bite prevention rather than a cure or available immunization.For the general public, the practical advice mirrors what is already recommended against dengue and other mosquito borne diseases: eliminate standing water at home and in yards, use repellent, install screens on doors and windows, and limit prolonged outdoor exposure at dusk and at night, when mosquitoes are most active. People who work in rural or forested areas, such as farmers, veterinarians and biologists, face higher exposure risk and should take extra precautions. Anyone who develops sudden high fever with severe headache, confusion or muscle weakness after mosquito bites should seek medical care promptly, since these signs can indicate neurological involvement.

A 51 year old ride hailing driver was arrested in the act on suspicion of raping an 18 year old passenger during a trip in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo state, in the early hours of Tuesday, August 25. According to the Civil Police, the victim was found naked and crying in the back seat of the driver's car, as reported by Brazilian outlet G1.Investigators say the young woman had left a liquor store with a friend, who booked the app ride with two stops. The friend got off first, leaving the victim alone with the driver on the way to her home. During the trip she texted her friend saying she was scared because of the man's strange behavior, according to Glaucus Vinícius Silva, the police chief of Guarujá's main precinct, in an interview with TV Tribuna, a Globo affiliate, cited by G1.The friend was tracking the ride through the app and, noticing the victim had stopped responding and that the car had been stopped for a long time at a location different from the agreed destination, called the Military Police. Officers found the car parked on Rua Silvio Daige, in the Tejereba neighborhood, and found the victim naked and crying in the back seat, saying she had been raped by the driver. According to her account to police, the man took her phone and raped her using violence and intimidation.The driver's identity has not been released by authorities, which made it impossible to reach a defense lawyer by the time of the original report. São Paulo's Public Security Department said the suspect was arrested in the act on rape charges and taken to Guarujá's main police precinct, where he remained at the disposal of the courts. The Civil Police said the victim received medical care and underwent forensic exams, including biological sample collection for genetic testing, and that the driver's phone was seized.Uber's responseIn a statement carried by G1, Uber called the case "unacceptable" and said it believes women "have the right to come and go as they wish" safely. The company said the driver's account was deactivated as soon as it learned of the incident and that it is cooperating with authorities. According to the statement, the trip was covered by insurance and the victim has access to a psychological support channel run in partnership with the NGO Me Too Brasil. In Brazil, ride hailing apps like Uber and 99 are widely used for both everyday transport and nightlife, which has made passenger safety on these platforms a recurring public debate.This account currently relies on a single journalistic source, G1, which directly quoted the Civil Police, São Paulo's Public Security Department and Uber. There is no information yet on any defense statement from the arrested driver.

The Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), the body that oversees medical practice in Brazil, is behind more than 80% of the amendments filed in Congress to the provisional measure that makes passing the Enamed, a national exam created by the Lula administration to assess medical training, a requirement for the professional registration of new doctors. According to a survey by the Painel column in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, 389 of the 479 amendments filed by deputies and senators draw on suggestions linked to the entity, which opposes the government's model.Signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and published on June 19, provisional measure MP 1.370/2026 applies to students who enter medical school from that date on; those already enrolled or already graduated remain under the current rules. In Brazil, a provisional measure is issued by the president and takes effect immediately, but expires unless Congress approves it. The text also makes the Enamed the theoretical stage of the Revalida, the process that validates diplomas of physicians trained abroad. The joint congressional committee reviewing the measure was installed on August 12, with representative Doutor Luizinho (PP-RJ) as rapporteur. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate must approve the text by October for it to remain in force.Among the proposals filed within the congressional deadline, which ended in June, are the addition of a practical clinical skills test, broader participation of medical entities in running the exam, changes to professional registration rules, mechanisms to make results more transparent, closer supervision of medical schools and integration of the Enamed into residency selection, Folha reported. The rapporteur will decide which suggestions make it into his report.The CFM openly criticizes the measure. The entity's president, José Hiran Gallo, argues the exam does not measure a physician's proficiency, delays any practical effect of the assessment by six years and does not hold schools accountable for poor training. "The measure does not assess medical proficiency. The model has failed under the Education Ministry's oversight," he said in a June statement. The council instead defends ProfiMed (National Medical Proficiency Exam), provided for in bill PL 2.294/2024 and already approved by Senate committees, and cites a Datafolha poll in which 96% of Brazilians said doctors should be tested before receiving their license.The dispute gained weight with the results of the first edition of the Enamed, created by the Education Ministry in 2025 and administered by Inep, the federal education assessment institute. Of the 351 medical programs evaluated, 107 received the two lowest scores on a five-level scale, most of them at private institutions, while 49 earned the top mark, concentrated in public universities. About 13,000 graduating students fell short of the expected proficiency level, according to the Brazilian Medical Association (AMB); the CFM puts the figure at around 14,000 students at the two lowest levels. Ministry sanctions against 99 programs were suspended in August by an injunction from a federal appeals court, issued at the request of private higher education groups. The government said it will appeal, and the ruling does not affect this year's exam. The AMB backs the assessment: "A diploma cannot be just a piece of paper proving that someone attended a college for six years. It has to represent knowledge, competence and responsibility," said the association's acting president, Luciana Rodrigues Silva.What is confirmed and what still depends on CongressConfirmed: the 2026 exam is on and will be administered on September 13, from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Brasília time), in every state and in the Federal District, with 100 multiple-choice questions. The confirmation card with the test location is available from September 4 on Inep's website, and results for graduating students and graduates are due on December 4. Still pending: the registration requirement only takes effect if Congress approves the measure, and it would apply only to students who started medical school after June 19, 2026. If the text becomes law, the exam will be held twice a year from 2027, and candidates who miss the minimum score may retake it as many times as needed. Until then, students already enrolled follow the current registration rules of the regional medical councils.

A premature baby died on Thursday, August 20, after an obstetrician injured the newborn's head with a scalpel during a cesarean section at the Hospital das Clínicas of the University of São Paulo's medical school (USP) in Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo state. The case was first reported by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, which obtained a military police incident report on the case.According to the police report, the infant was injured on August 18 during delivery and underwent additional medical procedures, including treatment by a neurosurgeon. Despite the intervention, the newborn suffered bleeding in the skull and died two days later. The baby's mother, a resident of the nearby town of Serrana, is said to be in stable condition, according to the report.Brazil's Civil Police is investigating the newborn's death. The case was filed with the Judicial Police Center in Ribeirão Preto and forwarded to the city's 3rd Police District, which is handling the inquiry. São Paulo's Public Security Secretariat said investigative details would be kept confidential to avoid compromising the probe.Contacted by Folha, the Ribeirão Preto teaching hospital, known as Hospital das Clínicas, did not disclose details about how the injury occurred but confirmed it had opened an internal review of the case. The hospital said it considers a "technical, impartial and thorough analysis" necessary, adding that it wants to avoid "premature conclusions.""The committee will evaluate all elements related to the care provided, including the circumstances of the delivery, the fetus's clinical condition, the context of prematurity and the urgency of the procedure. At the same time, the hospital will provide all information requested by the relevant authorities who may also investigate the case," the hospital said in a statement.The Hospital das Clínicas in Ribeirão Preto is one of the largest hospital complexes linked to USP and a regional reference center for high-complexity care. Brazilian public university hospitals like this one commonly serve as teaching facilities where medical residents train under supervision. The case remains under investigation by both police and the hospital's internal committee, and there is no public information so far on whether the obstetrician involved has been removed from duties.

Brazil's health regulatory agency Anvisa on Monday (24) canceled the conditional registration of Elevidys (delandistrogene moxeparvovec), a gene therapy used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy and ranked among the most expensive medicines in the world, with a single dose estimated at up to R$ 20 million. The decision was published in the Federal Official Gazette and, according to the agency, followed a request from the manufacturer, Roche.In a joint statement, Anvisa and Roche said the full set of data available so far was not enough to meet the regulatory requirements needed to keep the conditional registration. With the cancellation, the import, distribution and sale of Elevidys in Brazil are officially suspended, reported Folha de S.Paulo.Conditional registration is a provisional approval Anvisa grants to medicines for rare or severe diseases. The company must keep submitting data while the product is already in use; if the information fails to confirm the expected benefits, the registration can be canceled. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a rare genetic disease that causes progressive muscle degeneration.History of safety alertsElevidys obtained conditional registration in Brazil in December 2024. In July 2025, sales were suspended as a precaution after the therapy was linked to deaths from acute liver failure in the United States. According to Folha, the FDA, the U.S. regulator, linked three deaths to the gene therapy: two children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who were using the medicine and one adult with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.In Brazil, ten children were treated with the drug before the suspension, and three reports of adverse effects had been received by Anvisa through July of last year, according to the agency. Elevidys was not incorporated into the SUS, Brazil's public health system, and reached patients through court orders. The Ministry of Health paid as much as R$ 17 million per dose, according to Folha.Anvisa said the cancellation does not change Roche's obligations to monitor patients already exposed to the medicine, including the Brazilians who received Elevidys between December 2024 and July 2025, with continuous safety monitoring. Roche said it remains committed to the therapy's clinical program and to presenting new evidence, and Anvisa said it is willing to give priority review to future submissions of the medicine.

Presidential candidate Romeu Zema of the Novo party said on Monday (24) that he opposes mandatory vaccination, promised amnesty for those convicted over the January 8 attacks and once again denied that there was a coup attempt under former president Jair Bolsonaro. The statements came in an interview with TV Globo's Jornal Nacional, which opened the Brazilian network's series of interviews with presidential hopefuls.According to Folha de S.Paulo, Zema said it is wrong for a family to be persecuted for choosing not to get vaccinated. "Turning that into a crime is not something that can happen in a democratic country," said the former governor of Minas Gerais, after noting that he took every dose of the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic. Brazil has no law making vaccination compulsory, although refusal can carry administrative consequences, such as companies that sidelined unvaccinated employees during the pandemic. Live coverage by g1 showed the issue came up amid a measles outbreak in São Paulo and falling childhood vaccination rates in the country.Amnesty and January 8If elected, Zema promised to grant amnesty to those convicted for the attacks of January 8, 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters stormed and vandalized the seats of Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court in Brasília. "Nowhere in human history has there been a coup attempt carried out as an act of vandalism like the one that happened in January 2023," he said, according to Folha. In a passage highlighted by CNN Brasil, the candidate added: "Were any shots fired? There was no movement. In my opinion, it was an entirely political trial.""I will grant amnesty or, at the very least, a judicial court rather than a political one. What we saw in Brazil was persecution," Zema said of the rulings of the STF, Brazil's Supreme Court. According to CNN Brasil, he also disagreed with the crimes attributed to Bolsonaro and said he trusts the electoral system, while arguing that electronic voting machines would be more credible with printed ballots.According to Folha, the remarks reinforce Zema's campaign strategy of attacking Supreme Court justices, whom he calls "untouchables" or a "caste" that acts above the law. A campaign jingle posted on the candidate's social media shows AI-generated images of justices Gilmar Mendes and Alexandre de Moraes dressed as inmates, next to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).Zema was the first of six candidates interviewed by TV Globo between August 24 and 29, according to g1. The network invited the best-placed contenders in the August 14 Quaest poll, and the order was set by a draw. He is followed by Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) on Tuesday, Renan Santos (Missão) on Wednesday, Lula (PT) on Thursday, Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) on Friday and Augusto Cury (Avante) on Saturday. Zema left the Minas Gerais governorship in March to run for president.

The Santa Catarina State Health Department confirmed on Monday (24) the first death from West Nile fever ever recorded in the state, in southern Brazil. The victim was a 77-year-old woman who died on August 8 in Imbituba, on the state's southern coast, according to G1 and local outlet NSC Total.According to the department, death from the disease is considered rare. In addition to the elderly woman, a 56-year-old man from Caçador, in the state's west, was also diagnosed with the infection but has already been discharged from hospital. Both patients developed neurological symptoms, and the cases remain under epidemiological investigation to map the likely sites of infection and clarify the link between virus circulation and the recorded symptoms.West Nile fever is an acute febrile illness caused by a virus transmitted mainly through the bite of mosquitoes of the Culex genus, the common house mosquito. According to Brazil's Health Ministry, wild birds are the virus's natural hosts, and there is no person-to-person transmission, nor direct transmission from birds to humans. Horses and primates can also be infected.Symptoms and treatmentMost infections show no symptoms. About 20% of infected people develop signs, usually mild, such as sudden-onset fever, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting and red skin rashes, according to the Health Ministry. One in every 150 infected people develops severe neurological disease, such as meningitis, encephalitis or acute flaccid paralysis.There is no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for the disease. Care is limited to supportive measures, with rest and fluid replacement; severe cases require intensive care. Diagnosis can be made through a blood test, which should be done as early as possible, the state health department said.The department advises anyone with fever accompanied by neurological symptoms, such as mental confusion, altered consciousness or weakness, to seek medical care and tell health professionals about possible exposure to mosquitoes. According to NSC Total, the department plans to step up epidemiological, laboratory, animal and entomological surveillance across the state. As prevention, the Health Ministry recommends using repellent, fitting screens on doors and windows and eliminating standing water.

Discord filed an appeal on Monday (24) against the decision by Brazil's data protection authority, the ANPD (Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados), that suspended the platform's livestreams in the country. According to G1, the company is seeking an immediate suspensive effect to switch the live features back on and the annulment of the precautionary measure, alleging the agency lacked legal competence, formal flaws in the process and a "disproportionate" punishment.The order targeted the Go Live feature and equivalent video streaming and screen sharing tools. Issued on August 12, it was carried out by Discord on August 17, according to Tecnoblog. Text messages, servers and voice-only channels kept working normally. The ANPD says the suspension will remain in place until the company proves it has adopted effective measures to protect children and teenagers on the platform.The measure followed the death of a 13-year-old girl who took her own life during a broadcast on the platform. According to Tecnoblog, Civil Police arrested in early August five teenagers aged 13 to 17 and an 18-year-old man suspected of involvement in the case. The regulator's technical staff concluded that Discord has no access to video transmissions, which makes it harder to detect violations in real time, and that its age verification mechanisms are fragile. The debate over safety in digital spaces gained momentum after first lady Janja da Silva said the platform should be taken offline "immediately".The appeal's argumentsIn the filing, Discord's defense argues that the ANPD has no legal competence to order the suspension of services under the law known as ECA Digital, Brazil's statute on the protection of children and adolescents online. According to the company, the law assigns sanctions such as warnings and fines to the administrative authority, while temporary suspension or prohibition of activities falls to the courts. The defense also says that, even at the administrative level, a measure of such impact and nationwide reach should not have been issued unilaterally by the Superintendent of Inspection.The appeal argues that the blocking of group video calls and private broadcasts affects families, students, communities and companies across the country every day, users with no connection to unlawful conduct.Proposed alternativesIf the measure is not fully annulled or reconsidered by the Superintendence, Discord asks that the case be sent to the ANPD's Board of Directors. As alternatives, the company proposes converting the suspension into a Compliance Plan, with a technical delivery schedule and clear goals; the immediate setting of a deadline and objective criteria for a phased reactivation of services; and the formalization of a conduct adjustment agreement (TAC, in the Portuguese acronym) centralized at the authority.The ANPD is a regulatory agency linked to the Justice Ministry. When it announced compliance with the order on August 17, Discord said it was working "in good faith" with the authority to restore video features "as quickly as possible".

The race for Brazil's presidency in October 2026 has taken an unexpected turn, with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) reaching a statistical tie with President Lula in polls simulating a potential runoff election. The result represents a significant shift in Brazilian electoral dynamics and consolidates the 44-year-old lawmaker as the opposition's leading candidate to challenge the incumbent. Flávio, eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who is serving a 27-year sentence at the Papuda penitentiary for crimes related to the 2022 coup attempt — has positioned himself as a more moderate and pragmatic version of the Bolsonarist right. His strategy includes maintaining the loyalty of the conservative base while seeking to attract centrist voters who distanced themselves from his father's combative style. On social media, Flávio already surpasses Lula in engagement and interactions, according to recent digital monitoring surveys. His robust online presence is translating into consistent growth in voting intention polls, with the senator jumping from around 22% in January to 31% in the most recent surveys, while Lula fluctuates between 33% and 36%. March 2026 is shaping up as a decisive month for defining the electoral chessboard. Ministers and public officeholders intending to run in the elections must resign their positions by month's end, which is expected to trigger a broad ministerial reshuffle in the Lula administration. The cabinet reconfiguration will reveal the definitive shape of political alliances for the campaign and could alter the balance of power in the National Congress. On the opposition front, Jair Bolsonaro's ICU hospitalization with bilateral bronchopneumonia has brought emotional elements to the campaign. Flávio has used his father's health situation to reinforce his narrative of political persecution and attract voter sympathy. Appeals for humanitarian home confinement have gained prominence in media and social networks, amplifying the candidate's visibility. Political analysts assess that the electoral landscape remains open and volatile. The Venezuelan question, following the capture of President Maduro, has become a pressure tool used by the opposition against Lula, who is criticized for his stance toward the Chavista regime. Without a change in approach on this issue, international relations experts warn the topic could cost the president decisive votes at the ballot box. The October 2026 elections are seen by international observers not merely as a contest between candidates, but as a referendum on the future of Brazilian democracy and the country's positioning in the global geopolitical landscape, amid growing polarization between the blocs led by the United States and China.