Doctors on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s medical team have disputed a gloomy prognosis about his health made by his former surgeon, the Venezuelan national radio reported.
In an interview with Mexican newspaper Milenio Semanal earlier this month, Salvador Navarrete said hopes for Chavez’s recovery were very slim and the socialist leader had less than two years to live.
“We, as doctors who treated the president in the past and continue to treat him at present, insist that Navarrete’s statements are scientifically ungrounded and therefore are false,” the radio quoted an official statement made by the three physicians on Saturday.
The doctors said Navarrete never had access to information concerning the president’s health and only had brief meetings with Chavez and his medical team on a couple of occasions a decade ago.
"The President, from the standpoint of cancer has been diagnosed and treated early. Subject to the appropriate follow-up treatments, the current status is quite satisfactory with an excellent prognosis,” the statement said.
There has been much controversy around Chavez's cancer, but the 57-year-old Venezuelan leader has repeatedly said his health was gradually improving after four courses of chemotherapy in Cuba.
Earlier this month, Chavez wrote on his Twitter account: "I'm free of disease. However, every four months I will have to be monitored to verify the ... good evolution of what was a disease and what we're continuing to treat."
In late September, Roger Noriega, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, accused the Venezuelan authorities of hiding the truth about Chavez's health ahead of presidential elections due in October 2012.
