Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer, Italian media reported. The 86-year-old three-time premier was admitted to the ICU due to an “unresolved problem” related to a previous infection, said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who is also the leader of the party Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
But according to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the former Italian leader is suffering from blood cancer.
Berlusconi has had a series of health problems in recent years, recovering from COVID-19 in 2020. was always on.
He has had a pacemaker for years, underwent heart surgery to replace an aortic valve in 2016 and is a prostate cancer survivor. In January 2022 he was admitted for a reported urinary tract infection.
Berlusconi had been to San Raffaele, where his personal physician works, for a regular check-up for several days just last week. In a tweet on March 31 after returning home, Berlusconi thanked “everyone who wanted to send a comment or a sign of love in these days.”
He said he was already back at work “ready and determined to commit myself as I have always done to the country I love”.
Messages wishing him a speedy recovery poured in from across the political spectrum. “Forza Silvio,” tweeted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, referring to the football chant that Berlusconi turned into the name of his political party.
Berlusconi remains at the helm of Forza Italia, the centre-right party he created when he jumped into politics in the early 1990s, although the day-to-day running of the party has been left to the grassroots.
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He has recently made waves with a handful of comments about his old friend Russian President Vladimir Putin, boasting that the two had exchanged birthday greetings and blaming President- sitting Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky for the war.
Berlusconi’s comments have upset Meloni’s anti-Ukraine government, but just this week Tajani insisted that Berlusconi is committed to a peaceful solution to the war.
In January 2022, Berlusconi withdrew his name from consideration for the Italian presidency.
