Mario Russo resigned from his position as Argentina’s Health Minister on Thursday for “strictly personal reasons,” according to a communiqué from the President’s Office. Russo will be replaced by Mario Lugones, a cardiologist who had been working as an advisor in the ministry.

Russo was the third senior cabinet member to depart since Javier Milei took office. Infrastructure Minister Guillermo Ferraro was fired in January over allegations that he leaked controversial comments by the president to the press. Chief of Staff Nicolás Posse left his position in May as a rift with the president grew amid the Congress debate over the Bases Law.

Russo was in the eye of the storm as Argentina suffered a mosquito repellent shortage during a dengue outbreak over the summer and autumn months shortly after Milei took office. Russo went weeks without giving interviews. In the first one he conceded, he provided very little information and stopped frequently to lick his teeth. “Wear long sleeves, be careful with shorts, and wear light-colored clothing,” he said back then.

The Health Ministry refused to offer the dengue vaccine to the general public for free and cast doubts over its efficacy. 

A few days later, Russo said that “laboratories, mass media, and the caste” were pressuring him into making public statements.

Russo previously served as head of the cardiology department at the Hospital Polo Sanitario de Malvinas Argentinas, the Buenos Aires Italian Hospital’s pediatric cardiopulmonary transplant service, and the head of the Coronary Unit at the FLENI clinic. He also worked at the state water and sewage utility, AySA, under Malena Galmarini. Galmarini is the wife of Sergio Massa, the 2023 Peronist presidential candidate who lost to Milei. 

Lugones, the new health minister, is the head and founder of the Sanatorio Güemes Foundation, dedicated to the teaching of medicine and clinical education.

On Friday, asked about the more than fifty senior and second-line officials who have left or been fired since the beginning of Milei’s presidency, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said “they will continue to leave, because part of a government that wants to do its best is to constantly seek the best officials in all lines of government.”

Adorni finished by thanking Russo for his service and wishing him success in his future endeavors.