Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been in hospital since Wednesday due to respiratory problems, is suffering from leukemia. An unnamed source told Reuters. Before that, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera also wrote about the diagnosis. The 86-year-old politician is now in the intensive care unit at Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital, having been treated mainly for heart problems in recent years.
The billionaire and leader of the government party Up, Italy was already in the hospital at the end of March and spent four days there. According to Corriere della Sera, there was no indication at the time that his health was so serious. On Wednesday, Berlusconi ended up in the intensive care unit and the media said that the cause was pneumonia. Now they state that the pneumonia is related to the diagnosed leukemia, i.e. a cancer of the hematopoiesis.
Berlusconi himself and his entourage have not yet commented on the news of a serious illness. But Berlusconi’s personal doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, is expected to issue an official report on Thursday, APA reported. On Wednesday, Berlusconi was visited in the hospital by his brother Paolo, partner Marta Fascina and all five of his children, which, according to Corriere della Sera, also indicates that the situation is serious.
Despite health problems and advanced age, Berlusconi is still active in politics. Since last year, he has been a senator and leads the government party Up Italy, but he himself is not a member of the right-wing cabinet.
In 2020, he contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus and ended up in the hospital with bilateral pneumonia. Due to the consequences of covid-19, he was repeatedly under the care of doctors in 2021. In 2019, he underwent surgery for an intestinal obstruction, and in 2016, he underwent serious heart surgery. He already had a pacemaker for several years. In the late 1990s, Berlusconi was operated on for prostate cancer.
