Brazilian President tests COVID-19 positive for third time

Brasilia: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has again tested positive for COVID-19 for the third time since getting diagnosed with the infection, Brazilian media reported on Wednesday.

Bolsonaro, an ardent coronavirus skeptic, was diagnosed with COVID-19 on July 7 and subsequently quarantined in the presidential palace in Brasilia.

"President Jair Bolsonaro remains in sound health, doctors are monitoring him...The test undertaken on July 21 came back positive," a statement by the presidential administration read, as quoted by the G1 broadcaster.

Last week, the Brazilian President tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time.

While in quarantine, Bolsonaro has several times posted pictures on the internet showing him having breakfast or drinking coffee or feeding ostriches, which live in his residence.

This past Sunday, Bolsonaro received several hundred of his supporters in the garden of the presidential palace. According to the video footage of the meeting, the Brazilian president stood rather close to visitors and at some point even took off his face mask.

Brazil is now the world's second-worst affected country after the United States, which has over two million confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 80,000 related deaths, according to the latest situation report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).