ASUNCION (Reuters) – Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, who has cancer and was rushed to a hospital in Brazil over the weekend, said yesterday he felt healthy and eager to resume his duties later this week.
The former Roman Catholic bishop left the intensive care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital yesterday following treatment for a blood clot, but he was expected to remain hospitalized until tomorrow, one of his doctors said.
Lugo, 59, who has led the poor soy-exporting nation for two years, said he felt “radiant and healthy.”
“I should be there (in Paraguay) on Wednesday … to get back to work with higher spirits, more enthusiasm,” he told Paraguayan state radio.
The president’s improved condition should help ease concerns about his health in Paraguay, which has enjoyed a decade of political stability following a volatile period after the end of Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship in 1989.
A sharp deterioration in Lugo’s health might force him to cede power temporarily to Vice President Federico Franco, who has often clashed with the president over his leftist policies, but has vowed not to take advantage of his illness.
Lugo was rushed to a hospital in neighbouring Brazil on Saturday after doctors initially diagnosed him with a severe throat infection that they thought risked spreading to his lungs. Further studies revealed a thrombosis, or blood clot in a blood vessel, likely the result of the chemotherapy he has undergone, his doctor said.
In August, Lugo was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that originates in the lymphatic system, the disease-fighting network spread throughout the body.
Earlier yesterday, one of Lugo’s doctors, Alfredo Boccia, said the blood clot had completely dissolved in a vein that carries blood from the upper half of the body to the heart.
