JOHANNESBURG - Nelson Mandela was “responding positively” to treatment
Thursday after being readmitted to hospital with a lung infection, the
latest health scare for the much-loved anti-apartheid icon.
The frail 94-year-old former South African president was hospitalised
just before midnight on Wednesday, the presidency said, urging people
around the world to pray for him.
“The doctors advise that former
president Nelson Mandela is responding positively to the treatment he is
undergoing for a recurring lung infection,” President Jacob Zuma’s
office said in a short statement.
“He remains under treatment and observation in hospital.”
The
Nobel peace laureate, regarded as the father of the “rainbow nation”,
was conscious when he was admitted, presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj
told AFP.
It is the second time this month that Mandela has spent the
night in hospital and follows a nearly three-week stay in December for
the lung infection and for gallstone surgery, after which he was
released for home-based care.
Mandela was diagnosed with early-stage
tuberculosis in 1988 during his near three-decades in prison under the
white-minority apartheid regime and has long problems with his lungs.
“Doctors
are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert
medical treatment and comfort,” Zuma’s office said earlier.
Zuma
wished “Madiba”, as South Africa’s first black president is
affectionately known, a quick recovery and asked for people around the
world to pray for him.
“We appeal to the people of South Africa and
the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them
in their thoughts,” he said.
“We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery.”
Revered
at home and abroad as the symbol of the country’s peaceful shift to
democracy after apartheid, his “long walk to freedom” in 1990 after 27
years behind bars was one of the most potent images of the time.
But
as he has grown increasingly frail, he has not appeared in public since
South Africa’s football World Cup final in 2010, six years after
retiring from public life.
The ruling African National Congress, the
once-banned liberation movement that Mandela led into power, serving as
president for one term from 1994, also called for prayers for their
former leader.
“During these trying times we wish President Mandela
well and for his family to be strong,” the party said in a statement,
adding that it was “confident that the treatment will be successful”.
The
name and location of the hospital treating Mandela were not disclosed,
to allow the medical team to focus on their work and to shield the
family from the intense media interest. “We know they are going through a
difficult time and we want to ensure that their privacy is maintained,”
Maharaj said.
Mandela’s December hospital stay was his longest since
he walked free in 1990. Early last year, he was admitted for a minor
exploratory procedure to investigate persistent abdominal pain.
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