Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has chronic leukaemia, has been transferred from an intensive care unit to a regular ward at a Milan hospital, where he is being treated for a lung infection, his brother has said.
“All OK, he’s out of intensive care,” Milan daily Corriere della Sera quoted Paolo Berlusconi as saying before visiting his 86-year-old sibling at San Raffaele hospital.
Italian news agency LaPresse also said his brother confirmed the transfer out of the ICU at the hospital, where he was admitted on April 5.
The hospital declined to comment on the report, but said that it would issue a medical bulletin on Mr Berlusconi’s condition on Monday.
Matteo Salvini, a longtime right-wing ally of Mr Berlusconi, and currently a government minister, tweeted “Good luck, Silvio, my friend” and linked his wishes in the tweet to Corriere’s report.
Mr Berlusconi was hospitalised for treatment of what his doctors said is a lung infection. During his hospitalisation, his doctors, including his longtime personal physician, revealed publicly that the former three-time premier has chronic leukemia.
In past years, Mr Berlusconi has also suffered serious heart problems, and in 2020 was admitted to the same hospital, in critical condition, for treatment of Covid-19.
His Forza Italia party, which he founded around 30 years ago, and Mr Salvini’s anti-migrant League, are junior partners in the government led by far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni. Unlike Mr Salvini, who is infrastructure and transport minister, Mr Berlusconi holds no government role.
