Doctors close to jailed Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, including his personal doctor, urged him on Thursday to end his hunger strike “immediately”, saying they feared his death or “considerable damage” to his health if he continued. .
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“As treating doctors, we appeal to Alexeï Navalny and ask him to immediately stop his hunger strike in order to preserve his life and his health”, indicated the five signatory doctors in a letter published by the media of opposition Mediazona.
Doctors, including Anastassia Vassilieva, Mr. Navalny’s personal doctor, said they had access to the results of the analyzes carried out by the opponent since his transfer earlier this week to a hospital for tuberculosis prisoners.
“Continuing to fast can significantly damage the health of Alexei Navalny and can lead to the saddest result – death,” continue the doctors.
They highlight in particular in the opponent “symptoms of renal failure, severe neurological symptoms and severe hyponatremia” which, according to them, can lead to even more serious illnesses.
“If the hunger strike continues even for a minimal time, unfortunately we will soon have no one to heal,” they alarmed, calling on the authorities to give them access to Mr. Navalny and transfer him to a Moscow hospital, where he can receive “appropriate care”.
The main critic of the Kremlin is currently in an establishment in Vladimir, 180 km east of Moscow, from where he was transferred from his penal colony of Pokrov in the same region.
Mr Navalny, 44, stopped eating on March 31 to protest his conditions of detention, accusing the prison administration of denying him access to a doctor after suffering from a double herniated disc.
His relatives are all the more worried about his condition as he barely survived last year a poisoning that had plunged him into a coma, and of which he accuses the Kremlin.
Thousands of his supporters gathered in many Russian cities on Wednesday to call for his release, protests that resulted in more than 1,900 arrests.