Post date: Mar 09, 2013 6:8:4 PM
Former South African president Nelson Mandela is admitted to hospital for a "routine test", the government says.
QUNU, SOUTH AFRICA (REUTERS) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday (March 9) for a scheduled medical check-up, the office of the presidency said.
The office added in a statement that there was "no reason for any alarm" and Mandela had been taken to a hospital in Pretoria where doctors were conducting tests.The 94-year old Mandela spent most of December 2012 in a Pretoria hospital for a lung infection and surgery to remove gallstones.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mandela spent 27 years in prison, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off Cape Town, and became South Africa's first black president after the first all-race elections in 1994 brought an end to apartheid.