Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been admitted to a hospital in Florida with intestinal discomfort due to a stabbing he suffered during the 2018 election campaign, his wife Michelle Bolsonaro says.

In Brazil, Dr Antonio Luiz Macedo, who has been treating Bolsonaro since the stabbing, said he has an intestinal subocclusion, or blockage, but was unlikely to need surgery.

“It is not a serious case,” he told Reuters.

Earlier, a source close to his family said Bolsonaro’s condition was “not worrying”.

Before Mr Bolsonaro’s wife announced his hospitalisation on Instagram on Monday, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported that Mr Bolsonaro had been suffering from abdominal pain.

Mr Bolsonaro has undergone six surgeries since his stabbing, four of them directly linked to the attack.

He also has had cases of bowel adhesions and obstructions in the past few years.

On Sunday, Mr Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil’s capital launched the worst attack on state institutions since the country’s return to democracy in the 1980s.

His successor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office on January 1, blamed Mr Bolsonaro for inflaming his supporters with a campaign of baseless allegations about election fraud.

Mr Bolsonaro flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended.