Cape Town - Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has been placed on a new course of intensive antibiotic treatment as doctors continue to combat what his family has described as inflammation.
In a typically brief statement issued on Wednesday, the anti-apartheid icon’s family said Tutu would remain in hospital for two weeks while the course of antibiotics was being administered.
He was in good spirits and not in any pain, they said.
“The Archbishop and his family are deeply appreciative of the prayers and good wishes of so many,” his daughter, the Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu, said.
While her father was very grateful to the media for its concern, he had humbly requested journalists not to anticipate daily updates on his condition so that he could rest peacefully while receiving treatment, she said.
Any change in his condition would be communicated by the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
Last week, Tutu said her father’s re-admittance to hospital was "caution, not crisis".
Tutu has been in and out of hospital several times this year, in quick succession. This latest problem was however not related to a previous time about a month ago when he had fought an infection.
It was also unrelated to the prostate cancer he has been fighting for the past 18 years.
The 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s body was no longer so flexible and it was to be expected that he would not bounce back from illness as quickly as he used to, his daughter said.
Cape Argus