Berlusconi in ICU for Lung Infection After Leukemia Diagnosis

(Bloomberg) -- Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in intensive care to treat a pulmonary infection that’s linked to chronic leukemia, according to doctors at a hospital in Milan.

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The 86-year-old media tycoon has been suffering from leukemia for some time and the disease is not in an acute phase, his doctors Alberto Zangrillo and Fabio Ciceri at the San Raffaele hospital said in a note Thursday, revealing the condition for the first time.

Forza Italia party leader’s treatment is targeted at reducing the negative impact of the disease and restore his clinical conditions before contracting the pulmonary infection, the doctors said.

The former premier is lucid and awake according to newspaper Corriere della Sera.

His Forza Italia party is a junior partner in Giorgia Meloni’s government coalition. His interests span from real estate to publishing to finance. His family holding company, Fininvest, also has a stake in mid-sized Italian bank Banca Mediolanum.

Before becoming a politician in 1994, Berlusconi founded MediaForEurope, formerly known as Mediaset, Italy’s first privately-owned free television broadcasting service.

Should his condition worsen, the future of the party may be at risk. That wouldn’t however impact the stability of Meloni’s cabinet, given her broad majority and the likelihood that most of Berlusconi’s lawmakers would remain within her coalition.

Berlusconi is Italy’s longest serving prime minister, having ruled for more than nine years at the head of four different cabinets.

Despite a career plagued by sex scandals, blunders and even accusations of corruption and mafia links, he constantly managed to bounce back. His close ties and public defense of Russian leader Vladimir Putin didn’t stop Forza Italia from securing the foreign ministry post in Meloni’s cabinet.

--With assistance from Flavia Rotondi.

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