By Judith Flores
A mystery surrounds the state of health of Sandinista Daniel Ortega, who has always handled the issue as a state secret.
Former allies have leaked that he suffers from lupus and heart problems, chronic and incurable ailments.
He reappeared on the scene with his wife and vice-president-designate Rosario Murillo after rumors about his deteriorating health on social networks.
A more stooped Ortega received the president of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) a day after his son Laureano Ortega Murillo signed “cooperation projects” for his parents’ regime.
Since his return to power, Ortega has disappeared for long periods without explanation.
This situation has even generated rumors of his supposed death, but his physical deterioration is evident when he appears.
His appearances are nocturnal; most official activities, including military parades on Army anniversaries, occur at night.
Most patients with this pathology are sensitive to the sun.
Ultraviolet rays can activate or worsen lupus activity in the skin and other organs.
Sun exposure can cause fatigue, joint pain, inflammation, fever, and hair loss.
The issue of Ortega’s health conditions gained relevance again after Dr. Richard Saenz Coen – a political prisoner currently in exile and the gynecologist of Murillo-Ortega families until before the protests on April 18, 2018 – published that he presented medical complications due to chronic renal insufficiency.
At the same time, he reported that the medical team of the “presidential house” had been summoned due to the conditions presented by Ortega.
“I know this from reliable sources”, wrote the specialist, who had to respond to emergency calls in the early morning hours when he worked for them.
The large Murillo-Ortega family, their children, and respective nuclei live in the same place, in El Carmen, where they have built a bunker, a kind of citadel that has a sports field and where the children of the presidential couple have built their residences.
“He takes care of himself. He knows he has a chronic disease.”
“He is a guy who has lupus and a heart problem,” Oscar Rene Vargas, one of Ortega’s former allies and advisor during his first mandate, told Infobae.
Although Ortega has a medical team in Nicaragua and an equipped clinic at his residence in El Carmen, he regularly travels to Cuba, where rumors suggest he is being treated for lupus.
Lupus is a chronic and complex autoimmune disease that can affect the joints, skin, brain, lungs, kidneys, and blood vessels in a way that causes generalized inflammation and tissue damage in the affected organs.
This would explain the chronic renal insufficiency that Ortega is suffering from, according to the information provided by Dr. Saenz.
The specialist told La Gaceta that there was an alert in El Carmen after the leak about the deterioration of Ortega’s health.
“It is handled that they are trying to show Ortega this April 19, the old guard of the Sandinista is alert, waiting for Ortega to die to fall to Rosario Murillo”.
The so-called “historic Sandinismo” does not support Murillo. The regime will declare April 19 a “national day of peace in Nicaragua”.
Ortega is expected to make an appearance on that day.
If Ortega dies, he would be succeeded by his wife, Rosario Murillo, whom he has called co-president of the Central American nation and whom his former allies point out as “perverse”.
So far, the regime has not come out to “deny” the health relapse of Daniel Ortega.
Ortega was absent at the signing of projects with China on Friday.
In his place was his son Laureno Ortega Murillo, who is said to be the dynasty’s successor.
With information from LGI