South Africa's anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is comfortable and able to breathe without problems as he continues to respond to treatment in hospital for a recurrence of pneumonia, President Jacob Zuma's office said on Saturday. After the revered 94-year-old statesman and former South African president spent a third night in hospital, the presidency said doctors had drained excess fluid from his lungs to tackle the infection.
"This has resulted in him now being able to breathe without difficulty. He continues to respond to treatment and is comfortable," the statement added. In the first detailed mention of his medical condition since his latest hospitalisation, the third in four months, the presidency said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate had "developed a pleural effusion which was tapped". Previous bulletins since he was taken to hospital late on Wednesday have reported him responding well, in "good spirits".
They have appeared to indicate that the recurrence of the lung infection afflicting Mandela is being successfully treated. Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and stepped down five years later, has been mostly absent from the political scene for the past decade. But he remains an enduring and beloved symbol of the struggle against racism.
Global figures such as US President Barack Obama have sent get well messages and South Africans have included Mandela in their prayers on the Easter weekend, one of the most important dates of the Christian calendar. Mandela is revered at home and abroad for leading the struggle against white minority rule, then promoting the cause of racial reconciliation when in power.
His fragile health has been a concern for years as he has withdrawn from the public eye and mostly stayed at his affluent homes in Johannesburg and in Qunu, the rural village in the destitute Eastern Cape province near where he was born. South Africans of all ages and walks of life have been following the official medical bulletins closely.
"He is the father of the nation, our Abraham Lincoln, our George Washington," said South African economics student Curtis Richardson, 19, as he visited Nelson Mandela Square in an upscale Johannesburg shopping mall with friends.