{{South Africa\u2019s ailing anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela may have to stay in hospital over Christmas, a presidential aide suggested on Sunday, although he declined to give any update on his current state of health.}}<\/p>\n
The frail 94-year-old former president was admitted to hospital in the capital Pretoria on December 8. <\/p>\n
He is receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection and has also had a procedure to remove gallstones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all wish that he could be home for Christmas, but first and foremost he needs to get better,\u201d presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told AFP after press reports he may stay in hospital during the festive season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this stage there is no update on his condition and his doctors have given no indication about when Madiba will be discharged,\u201d Maharaj said, using Mandela\u2019s clan name.<\/p>\n
Only President Jacob Zuma\u2019s office is tasked with issuing updates about the health of the revered elder statesman.<\/p>\n
Official reports about his treatment have not revealed much information about the seriousness of Mandela\u2019s condition nor details about the sort of treatment he is undergoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{South Africa\u2019s ailing anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela may have to stay in hospital over Christmas, a presidential aide suggested on Sunday, although he declined to give any update on his current state of health.}} The frail 94-year-old former president was admitted to hospital in the capital Pretoria on December 8. He is receiving treatment for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}