Bangladesh’s former prime minister Khaleda Zia is now “more stable,” with no deterioration in her condition, her personal doctor AZM Zahid Hossain said on Friday, offering a cautious update on the 80-year-old leader’s health.
Zia, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has been undergoing treatment at Dhaka’s Evercare Hospital since November 23 for multiple health complications and was later shifted to a coronary care unit.
On December 11, she was placed on “ventilator support to give rest to her lungs and other vital organs.”
Her personal physician AZM Zahid Hossain said her “condition is much more stable than before,” the state-run BSS news agency reported.
“Currently, there has been no deterioration in her condition,” he said, adding that her physical condition has remained “quite stable” over the past month.
Hossain said Zia also underwent a minor procedure on Friday, which was completed “very successfully”, and that “she was able to accept it well”.
Earlier, on December 11, Zia’s medical board said she was under round-the-clock medical observation by a team of local and foreign specialists as several vital organs continued to be under severe stress.
She was scheduled to be flown to London last week with the medical board’s consent but her departure was delayed as an air ambulance offered by Qatar could not reach Dhaka.
The doctors later decided that Zia should receive continued treatment at Dhaka's hospital until she was deemed fit to fly.
Zia’s son and BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman is set to return home on December 25, ending his 17 years of self-exile in London.
