Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff to Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the woman handpicked by him to be Brazil’s next president, has been declared by her doctors to be free of lymphatic cancer.
“After exhaustive examinations it was determined that her treatment achieved the expected result and that minister Dilma Rousseff is free of any sign of lymphoma,” according to a note from doctors at the Sírio Libanês Hospital in São Paulo where she was treated.
The one-time guerrilla and veteran leader of the governing Workers Party is in “an excellent general state of health” and may return to her normal routine, say the medical communique.
Rousseff underwent a biopsy in April that allowed doctors to diagnose her with lymphoma. Although at the time doctors acknowledged that with the early diagnosis and the removal of the affected nodule, any possibility of metastasis could be dismissed, they recommended chemotherapy and radiation.
The treatment, which ended this month and which led Rousseff to wear a wig due to hair loss, was considered a success by the doctors, who examined her several times last week.
Though her candidacy has not been made official and Rousseff refuses to say anything about it, both Lula and Workers Party leaders consider it already decided.
Surveys of voting preferences show her in third place after opposition leader and São Paulo state Governor José Serra and lately behind hopeful lawmaker and former governor of Ceará, Ciro Gomes.
The cancer, which was thought by some political leaders to be an impediment to her candidacy, did not stop Rousseff from keeping to her normal routine and work agenda including numerous trips with Lula.
The October 2010 election will be the first presidential poll in the last 20 years in which Lula will not stand as candidate, since after being elected in 2002 on his fourth try, he was re-elected in 2006 and is constitutionally barred from running for a third term.
Mercopress
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