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Zuma: Mandela Getting Better but Remains 'Serious'


A group of wellwishers hold up get-well placards outside the entrance to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, June 16, 2013.
A group of wellwishers hold up get-well placards outside the entrance to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where former South African President Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, June 16, 2013.
South African President Jacob Zuma says anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela remains in serious condition, but that his doctors feel he has shown "sustained" improvement in the last two days.

Zuma said Sunday the 94-year-old former South African president continues to engage with his family.

President Zuma made his remarks in the town of Newcastle at a rally to commemorate the 1976 Soweto student uprising during white minority rule in South Africa. He asked the audience to join him in wishing Mr. Mandela a happy Father's Day.

Mandela has been in a Pretoria hospital for nine days recovering from a lung infection.

This is the fourth time he has been hospitalized for a lung infection since December.

Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to the tuberculosis he contracted during his 27-year imprisonment under South Africa's apartheid system. He was released in 1990 and four years later was elected president in the country's first democratic polls.
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