Brazil's Bolsonaro discharged from hospital after gut blockage

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he was discharged from hospital on Wednesday morning, two days after being admitted with an intestinal obstruction, his latest health complication from a 2018 stabbing.

"Being discharged now. Thank you all," Bolsonaro posted on Twitter alongside a religious message and a photo of himself and his doctors giving a thumbs-up.

The Brazilian president, who had been vacationing in the southern state of Santa Catarina, was urgently taken to Sao Paulo's Vila Nova Star hospital in the early hours of Monday after suffering from abdominal pain.

Doctors inserted a nasogastric tube and even considered surgery, but the obstruction was cleared on Tuesday.

A medical bulletin issued on Tuesday evening said the president's digestive tract was showing signs of recovery, that he was doing well on a liquid diet and that doctors had removed the nasogastric tube.

Bolsonaro has undergone a series of emergency surgeries since being knifed during a campaign event in September 2018.

He said on Twitter on Monday that he had started feeling unwell on Sunday after lunch, noting it was his second hospitalization "with the same symptoms" in a few months. In July 2021, he was taken to the Vila Nova Star for an intestinal blockage after suffering chronic hiccups.

The far-right Bolsonaro has been in power since 2019 and plans to stand for re-election as president in a vote scheduled for October this year.