Bolivia interim President Jeanine Anez announced on Thursday that she has tested positive for coronavirus.
Taking to Twitter, she said, “I’ve tested positive for COVID-19, I’m fine, I will work from isolation”.
Anez also said in a video on Twitter that she would remain in quarantine for 14 days before taking another test.
Anez becomes the second South American president in a matter of days to contract the coronavirus after Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro announced his positive result on Tuesday.
Earlier, four members of Anez’s cabinet had tested positive for deadly disease.
The president said, “Given many of them tested positive over the last week, I took the test and I was also positive”.
The interim leader’s illness comes with Bolivia gearing up for a general election in less than two months, despite being in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, Anez took charge and appointed new military high command and government even as erstwhile head of state Evo Morales proclaimed from Mexico that he was ready to return to the Andean nation “if the people ask it”.
The United States and Brazil, among others, recognized Anez as interim president, while many in the international community had limited their response to calling for dialogue while declining to take sides.
Anez was third in the last opinion poll behind Luis Arce — the candidate for Morales’s Movement for Socialism party — and centrist former president Carlos Mesa.
Bolivia has recorded almost 43,000 coronavirus infections and more than 1,500 deaths.
(With inputs from agency)