Fernando Oliveira Character Analysis

Oliveira was a Brazilian doctor who used to perform illegal organ transplants before the zombie outbreak. His patients were often from privileged nations from Europe and North America, and he got most of his organs from China. Oliveira and his cardiologist accomplice Dr. Silva conducted a heart transplant on Herr Muller, a patient from Austria. At the time, the world still didn’t know about the zombie virus, and they didn’t realize that they’d put an infected heart in Muller, who died right after and then reanimated as a zombie. Muller killed and fed on Dr. Silva, and Oliveira, who was terrified, put a bullet through his brain and killed him. The corrupt Brazilian cops whom Oliveira paid off helped him cover up the incident. Oliveira says that his patients, many of them Americans, asked no questions about the source of their organs and went right back to their privileged, happy lives after their operations—neither he nor they initially realized that many of them must have been infected with the virus since most of the organs came from China. His account shows that the illegal organ trade was also a way by which the virus spread around the world, and that this was helped along not just by crime but by the apathy that comes from privilege.