Chavez has overcome respiratory infection, communications minister says

Venezuelan Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas says President Hugo Chavez has overcome a severe respiratory infection.

On Saturday, on the sidelines of a regional summit with European Union leaders held in the Chilean capital Santiago, Villegas stated that Chavez has recovered from a respiratory infection that he had been battling since his latest cancer surgery in Cuba.

“The respiratory infection has been overcome, though there still is some degree of breathing difficulty that is being treated appropriately,” Villegas added.

He went on to say that “forty-five days after surgery to remove a malignant tumor in the pelvis” Chavez’s condition is “favorable.”

“Comandante Chavez has fully completed the medical treatment and has always been active in the recovery process which is continuing,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro stated that the Venezuelan leader is in his “best moment” since undergoing cancer surgery.

The 58-year-old Venezuelan president traveled to Havana on December 10 for a fourth operation after his cancer reappeared, despite a year and a half of treatment.

In late March 2012, Chavez began radiation treatment in Cuba after an operation in February 2012 that removed a second cancerous tumor from his pelvic region. Chavez’s first tumor, which was baseball-sized, was removed in June 2011, and then he received chemotherapy.

Chavez, who came to power in 1999, was reelected to a new six-year term in October.