CARACAS: From a billboard bearing his face, to a giant inflatable doll and posters hawked on the street below, there is no shortage of images of Hugo Chavez at the Caracas military hospital where he has been since returning from Cuba.
Yet there has been no sight of the 58-year-old Venezuelan president since he came home during the night and without photos or fanfare a week ago.
His surprise return to Caracas raised supporters' hopes of a recovery after December surgery in Havana that was his fourth operation in 18 months.
But other than the government saying Chavez's breathing problem has worsened, there have been no new details about the patient on the well-guarded ninth floor.
"We don't even know if he's really here," said Marlene Vegas, 51, a housewife who lives near the military hospital. "We have only seen cars with dark windows going in and out."
When Chavez first got back from Cuba, a crowd of supporters gathered outside to dance and sing "He's back! He's back!", until hospital staff came out and asked them to keep quiet.
Now just a few curious onlookers and journalists loiter in front of the complex in the poor downtown San Juan neighborhood, watched by stern-faced uniformed and plainclothes security men.
A source inside said staircases to the ninth floor had been barred, and that the only doctors treating Chavez were Cubans.
Given the number of patients and staff at the facility, which covers more than half an acre (0.2 hectares) and employs 4,000 people, it will be harder for authorities to maintain the same secrecy around his treatment that Chavez enjoyed in tightly-run Cuba.
For the moment, though, their efforts appear to be working.
Nursing staff and others at the military hospital, where Chavez underwent chemotherapy in 2011, told Reuters they knew nothing about his current medical condition.
Apart from a few photos of Chavez in a Havana hospital bed that were released by the government, Chavez has not been seen nor heard from in public since his Dec. 11 operation.
He won re-election in October but was unable to swear in at the start of his new term last month.
Some in the opposition say those pictures prove they were right all along, that the president is no longer fit to govern and that a new election should be organized within 30 days.
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