A Spanish surgeon who has examined Fidel Castro has said that the Cuban leader does not have cancer.
Speaking on Tuesday after his return to Spain, Dr Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido dismissed US government speculation that Castro was close to death.
Instead he said the communist leader was recovering from an operation to stem intestinal bleeding.
"His physical activity is excellent, his intellectual activity intact, I'd say fantastic, he's recovering from his previous operation," Garcia Sabrido, head of surgery at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon public hospital, said.
"He asks every day to return to work, but doctors advise him not to."
Garcia Sabrido, who flew to Cuba last week to examine the 80-year-old leader, said he did not need further surgery but required physical therapy, a strict diet and rest.
"He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system," he said.
"President Castro has no malign inflammation, it's a benign process in which he has had a series of complications."
US speculation
John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, told The Washington Post on December 15 that "everything we see indicates it will not be much longer ... months, not years".
In Havana, Cuban officials declined to comment on the doctor's statements, saying Castro's condition was a state secret.
But his prognosis was in line with what they have been saying for months.
Raul Castro, the 75-year-old defence minister took over the government temporarily on July 31 when emergency surgery forced his brother to relinquish power for the first time since Cuba's 1959 revolution.