UPDATE - Italy’s Berlusconi hospitalized in intensive care in Milan

UPDATES WITH OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION; ADDS DETAILS, BACKGROUND

By Giada Zampano

ROME (AA) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in intensive care at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital due to a problem linked to a previous infection, Italy's foreign minister and Berlusconi's close ally said.

Berlusconi, 86, remains "alert," said Antonio Tajani, who is also a member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party. Tajani added that Berlusconi was hospitalized because of an “unresolved problem related to a previous infection.”

The billionaire media mogul and the three-time prime minister had just been discharged from the same hospital last week.

He had several health problems in recent years, including a heart attack that his doctor said could have killed him in 2016, and emergency bowel surgery in 2019.

In 2020, he suffered some complications linked to COVID-19, which he said was “the worst experience” in his entire life.

Berlusconi – who has dominated Italy’s political scene for about three decades – made his latest comeback with national elections last September.

Berlusconi also secured his return to parliament, winning a seat in the Senate nearly a decade after being banned from holding public office due to a tax fraud conviction.