MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lugo returns to Paraguay; Sunday he meets presidents Morales and Mujica

Doctors are optimistic about the evolution of President Lugo’s treatment

Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo is expected Saturday morning back in the capital Asunción from Sao Paulo where he underwent a first treatment of chemotherapy after earlier in the week he was diagnosed with a lymphoma which has extended to the chest and a vertebrae.

Information and communications minister Augusto Dos Santos said Lugo would retake his presidential agenda on Sunday when he will be one of the speakers at the Social Forum of the Americas and will later be meeting visiting presidents Jose Mujica from Uruguay and Evo Morales from Bolivia.

“President Lugo woke up early Friday with no collateral effects from his first chemotherapy treatment that lasted until midnight Thursday. He had breakfast and then spent an hour walking inside the Syrian-Lebanese hospital complex with members of his medical team”, pointed out Dos Santos.

Friday morning also Brazilian president Lula da Silva spoke on the phone with Lugo.

“The Paraguayan president thanked President Lula for his solidarity once his lymphoma was diagnosed and made public” added Dos Santos.

Lula da Silva’s personal doctor, Kalil Filho, who is also part of the medical team looking after Lugo, was present during the presidential chat and explained the extent of the tumours detected and the several weeks’ treatment which will be needed.

The official medical report is that President Lugo has a follicular lymphoma (not Hodgkin’s disease) malign at low degree, stage 4 which has advanced in ganglions and bones. More precisely it has been detected in the inguinal, mediastinum (behind the sternum) and third vertebrae of the lumbar zone.

“Having detected cancer in the bone is not the ideal, but we anticipated it as a possibility” said Dr. Alfredo Boccia.

The treatment demands five more chemotherapy sessions every three weeks, but they will be done in Paraguay. President Lugo is expected to return to Sao Paulo following the third session, if not at the end of the treatment.