Édgar Pozo Valdivia

Édgar Pozo Valdivia (born 1948) is a Bolivian cardiologist, who served as the Minister of Health and Sports from 9 November 2020 until 16 January 2021 when he was forced to leave office after contracting COVID-19. He is a member of the Bolivian Society of Cardiology and of the Latin American Society of Interventional Cardiology, and of other health institutions.

Biography Pozo completed professional studies at the Higher University of San Andrés and postgraduate studies at the National Thorax Institute of La Paz.

In 2016, he was appointed director of the National Thorax Institute (INT) where he worked to improve the conditions of the health system and denounced the shortcomings that made it difficult to care for patients. The toxic substance had been hailed by proponents of alternative medicine as a miracle cure to the virus. At a press conference, Pozo described the usage of chlorine dioxide as "permissible" and announced that the ministry would conduct a study into its use in order to "produce a broader knowledge about its benefits." Pozo's comments were feared to have added fuel to the popularity of the toxic substance in Bolivia where in the absence of widely available healthcare, many had embraced the toxic material.

Pozo was met with further controversy on 7 December when Minister of Justice Iván Lima reported that he had questioned the Health Minister surrounding the hiring of his son, Edgar Pozo Goytia, as legal adviser to the National Health Fund (CNS). Lima called the appointment a "serious irregularity" but stated that "we are not going to judge, we want the facts." Soon after, the head of Human Resources of the CNS, Paola Monje, denied there had been outside influence or nepotism in the institution and stated that Pozo Goytia had voluntarily resigned. At age 72, Pozo was deemed to be of greater risk of dying from the disease. On 28 January, the Chamber of Senators erroneously released a statement regretting that Pozo had died. The news release was denied the same day by Pozo's son and retracted the following day. Pozo was discharged from the National Thorax Institute on 9 April.