JOHANNESBURG (AP) – It’s time for retired archbishop Desmond Tutu to begin saying no to public events and causes in order to conserve his health, his daughter said Thursday, as the Nobel laureate remained hospitalized for a persistent infection.
Tutu, 83, was admitted to a Cape Town hospital on Tuesday, where he is receiving an “intensive course” of antibiotics to fight a “stubborn infection,” the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said earlier in a statement.
“We are confident that he will recover well from the treatment,” Tutu’s daughter Mpho said in a televised press briefing.
Tutu’s illness was not related to prostate cancer, for which he has been treated for years, Mpho Tutu said. It is uncertain how long he will remain in hospital, she said. She would not reveal the nature of his infection, but said the cancer remained dormant.
Mpho Tutu, an ordained reverend, believes it’s time for her father to begin declining public events.