BISSAU, Oct 31 – Guinea-Bissau President Malam Bacai Sanha, who has been hospitalised in Dakar for eight days, is "doing well" and has extended his stay in Senegal to get some rest, the presidency said Sunday.
The 63-year-old president was meant to return to neighbouring Guinea-Bissau on Saturday and his failure to do so sparked rumours his condition had worsened.
"The president is doing wonderfully and is relaxing," the president\’s head of protocol told AFP by telephone on Sunday.
"He is doing well. He has left the hospital and should return on Tuesday," a source in the Senegalese presidency said on condition of anonymity.
Sanha, who suffers from diabetes, was taken to Dakar last Saturday by military aircraft where he spent time in the intensive care unit under observation, hospital sources said.
No details have been given on his illness.
In December 2009, Sanha had to postpone a visit to Portugal for health reasons, being flown to Dakar and then hospitalised for 10 days in Paris.
Sanha became head of the troubled country in September 2009, after winning a run-off election in July with 67 percent of the votes six months after soldiers assassinated his predecessor, Joao Bernardo Vieira.
In the four decades since independence from Portugal, Guinea-Bissau has been wracked by coups d\’etat, army mutinies and political killings.
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