JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela “has made progress” in getting better after contracting a lung infection, officials said Wednesday.
A short statement issued by current President Jacob Zuma’s office announced Mandela’s status, as the 94-year-old leader’s stay in a military hospital near South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, stretched into a fifth day Wednesday.
“Doctors attending to former President Mandela have reported that he has made progress during the past 24 hours and they are satisfied with the way he is responding to treatment,” the statement by presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said.
The statement offered no other details.
Mandela was admitted to 1 Military Hospital on Saturday for tests. It was several days before authorities announced that Mandela was ill. Each day he spends hospitalized has caused growing concern in South Africa, a nation of 50 million people that largely reveres Mandela for being the nation’s first democratically elected president who sought to bring the country together after centuries of racial division.
