MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguayan president while under treatment must avoid contact with people

Fernando Lugo must return to Sao Paulo in six weeks to check on the evolution of the disease

Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo, currently under chemotherapy treatment should concentrate his activities to Government House and avoid mingling with people and exposed to dust in his trips to the interior of the country, warns a member of his medical team.

Dr. Julio Cesar Saucedo Marinho, a distinguished Paraguayan professor, but resident in Sao Paulo, Brazil said President Lugo has to return to the Syrian-Lebanese hospital in six weeks time for a new control to check on the evolution of the disease.

President Lugo was diagnosed with lymphoma during a routine medical test in Asuncion, but was later flown to Brazil where it was discovered that the inguinal malign nodules had spread to the mediastinum (behind the sternum) and third vertebrae of the lumbar zone.

Nevertheless doctors are optimistic since the lymphoma was detected at an early stage.

“We expect a gradual regression in the ganglions detected; if not the therapy will have to be changed. But Dr. Yana Novis (Brazil’s top specialist in lymphomas) expects President Lugo to avoid exposure to dust and contacts with people”, said Dr. Saucedo Marinho.

“With the treatment defences are low and it is obvious that the president must not be exposed to sick people. It’s complicated for a president since he will be going through periods of very low defences”, added the Paraguayan doctor.

“That’s why the ideal should be for him to remain at Government House”.

Dr. Saucedo Marinho also pointed out that the Syrian-Lebanese hospital is a leading research centre in nuclear medicine and one of the few equipped with a Positron Emission Tomography, PET, which enables to identify with precision and speed where the small sized malign nodules are located.

The doctor also revealed that President Lugo has catheter on the right side of his chest, through where the chemotherapy drugs are introduced, and will have to live with it until the end of the treatment.