Nicaragua Hounds Doctors For Telling Truth On COVID-19

Other countries have lured doctors out of retirement, pushed medical students to the front lines, and buoyed medical personnel exhausted by COVID-19 cases, but in Nicaragua doctors have been harassed, threatened, and sometimes forced into exile for questioning official handling of the pandemic, Christopher Sherman reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Vice President of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo

Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also the first lady, has accused doctors of “health terrorism” and of spreading “false outlooks and news” by reporting that COVID-19 has been far more widespread than officials acknowledge.

As international health organizations warn of increasing infections in Nicaragua and independent Nicaraguan doctors call for a voluntary quarantine to slow the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus, the government has made clear that comments out of step with its line are unacceptable as President Daniel Ortega seeks a fourth consecutive term.

Groups of doctors report much higher numbers than the government of virus infections and deaths from COVID-19, the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus.

And they have criticized the Sandinista government for promoting mass gatherings. Dr. Leonel Argüello, a physician who also is one of the country’s most prominent epidemiologists, recently fled Nicaragua after months of harassment and threats.

Argüello maintains his own tally of medical workers who died of COVID-19 and accuses the government of creating a false sense of security that has cost lives. “We are not working to remove a government,” the doctor said from an undisclosed country.

“We are not working to be an opposition party. We are working like we would work with any patient to look for a way to save his life.”

Argüello, who worked for the Health Ministry during the first Sandinista government, said he had ignored death threats, but said he sensed a change when Murillo spoke publicly about doctors inventing things and made clear the government would not continue tolerating it.

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