The United States Department of State announced on Wednesday (13) the revocation of visas for Mozart Júlio Tabosa Sales, Brazil’s current Secretary for Specialized Health Care, and former government official Alberto Kleiman, citing their “complicity” in a healthcare program that brought Cuban doctors to remote and underserved areas of Brazil.
In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Sales and Kleiman of being responsible for or participating in “facilitating Havana’s scheme” that allegedly “exploits Cuban health workers through forced labor.”
The program, launched in 2013 during Alexandre Padilha’s first term as Health Minister, deployed thousands of doctors, most from Cuba, to municipalities, neighborhoods, and Indigenous territories facing a severe shortage of health professionals. At its peak in 2016, it had 18,000 doctors serving nearly 63 million people across 4,000 municipalities.
On X (formerly Twitter), Padilha defended both the program and the sanctioned officials:
“We will not bow to those who persecute vaccines, researchers, science, and now two of the key people behind this program during my first term as Health Minister,” he wrote.
The initiative was established through an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), part of the World Health Organization (WHO). It was ended under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who compared the program to “slavery.” In response, Cuba withdrew its doctors from Brazil in November 2018, shortly before Bolsonaro took office in January 2019.
The program was reinstated under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third administration. “In just two years of this current government, we have doubled the number of doctors in the program. We are proud of this legacy, which delivers medical care to millions of Brazilians who previously had no access to healthcare,” Padilha wrote.
Also on X, Senator Humberto Costa, Brazil’s Health Minister from 2003 to 2005, during Lula’s first administration, said the U.S. move targeted the very idea of free public healthcare. “While this program delivers free medical care to millions in Brazil, Trump persecutes those who made it happen,” he wrote.
Leftwing federal lawmaker Guilherme Boulos also criticized the U.S. sanctions, calling them an attack on Brazil. “The boldness of the Bolsonaro-aligned plot against Brazil knows no limits. Now Trump is punishing civil servants who helped run a program that gave millions of Brazilians access to healthcare,” he posted.
*With AFP collaboration
