KIEV, February 2 (RIA Novosti) - Doctors have removed almost all the dioxin from the body of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, his doctor said at a news conference on Monday.

"95% of the dioxin has been removed from the president's body, and, thank God, his condition is normal and stable," Ukraine's UNIAN news agency quoted Rostyslav Valykhnovskiy as saying. He also said the president was doing well.

Yushchenko fell ill shortly after a dinner on September 5, 2004 with the then security service head Ihor Smeshko, and his deputy, Volodymyr Satsiuk, whom he had invited to discuss the 2004 election campaign.

The next day, Ukrainian doctors diagnosed food poisoning, and four days later, as his condition failed to improve, Yushchenko was taken to the Rudolfinerhaus clinic in Vienna, which he left later in the month for the election campaign.

Medical experts involved, including from the U.S., Austria and Britain, were divided over the cause of his illness, but in late 2004 the Rudolfinerhaus clinic confirmed that he had been poisoned with dioxin.

The incident left Yushchenko's face disfigured, and a number of conflicting theories arose as to who might have poisoned him - or indeed if he even was poisoned.