<p>PRAGUE &mdash; The Czech Republic on Tuesday lost its fourth health minister since the coronavirus pandemic struck last year.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that the current office-holder Petr Arenberger called him in Brussels, where Babis is attending a summit of European Union leaders to announce his resignation.</p>
<p>Arenberger, the director of Prague’s University Hospital Vinohrady, was only sworn in by President Milos Zeman on April 7.</p>
<p>He has been recently under fire from the media due to alleged irregularities in his tax returns. He declared he owned more assets and had a higher income after he became a government minister than in the preceding years.</p>
<p>It also emerged that he was renting one of his undeclared properties to the university hospital. That deal was signed before he was appointed its director.</p>
<p>Babis said Arenberger and his family were under pressure and “that’s the main reason” for the resignation, Babis said. </p>
<p>Babis said he planned to reappoint Adam Vojtech, who was health minister when the pandemic hit the country in March 2020, to the post.</p>
<p>Arenberger took office after his predecessor, Jan Blatny, was fired over his handling of the pandemic, including imposing strict conditions for the use of experimental drugs to treat COVID-19 patients and refusal to accept Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which has not been approved the European Union’s drug regulator.</p>
<p>Blatny had taken over the job on Oct. 29 to replace epidemiologist Roman Prymula, who was dismissed after he was photographed visiting a restaurant that should have been closed as part of the country’s restrictive measures.</p>
<p>Prymula had replaced Vojtech in the post on Sept. 21, to enable a different approach to the pandemic amid surging infections.</p>
<p>Infections are falling in the Czech Republic. The day-to-day tally of new cases dropped to 695 on Monday, down from almost 17,000 in early March.</p>
<p>The nation of 10.7 million has registered almost 1.7 million confirmed cases, with over 30,000 deaths.</p>
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