CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to travel to Cuba next month for a medical check-up after four rounds of chemotherapy for cancer, the Venezuelan state news agency said Friday.
The announcement came just a day after Chavez appeared before reporters to squelch reports he had been rushed to a Caracas military hospital because of a health crisis.
The AVN news agency quoted Chavez as saying the check-ups in Havana in the latter half of October "close this cycle" of his recovery from a cancerous tumor removed from his pelvic area in June.
Chavez, 57, has undergone four rounds of chemotherapy since the operation, but little information has been provided about the nature of the cancer, which has raised uncertainties about the state of his health.
On Thursday, Chavez was forced to deny a report in the Miami-based Spanish language El Nuevo Herald that he was rushed to a military hospital for emergency care following kidney failure.
The Venezuelan president showed up at the Miraflores presidential palace wearing a baseball cap and glove, tossing a ball as he commented about his health and denounced what he called a "morbid, crass and inhumane campaign" against him.
"I want to play ball, I'm itching to go," Chavez said in his first public appearance in a week.
"I'm doing well, I'm recovering day by day. Much discipline is required for that and I have it," the firebrand leftist leader said earlier in a telephone interview with state broadcaster VTV before his public appearance.
"I'm doing well despite hearing... the rumors spreading last night, and I ask Venezuelans not to take heed of rumors."
Chavez has been in power since 1999 and has maintained that he will recover in time to win re-election by a "knock-out" in 2012.
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