World

Yeltsin's Condition Improving

November 29, 1999 / 11:41 AM EST / AP

President Boris Yeltsin's health was improving Thursday but doctors kept him in the hospital to administer further treatment for pneumonia, officials said.

The president's doctors believe his health is getting better and there is no cause for concern, Yeltsin spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Another Kremlin spokesman, who refused to be identified, said the president's temperature was normal and he continued to receive treatment as planned. The spokesman said Yeltsin was still expected to meet with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who is to visit Moscow next Monday.

Yakushkin said that Yeltsin's trip to China, set for later this month, is still on the agenda.

Yeltsin fell ill last week with what aides described as a viral infection and acute bronchitis. He was hospitalized Monday after doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia.

"Boris Nikolayevich is always reluctant to go to the hospital ... but treatment of pneumonia requires hospitalization," Interfax quoted Yakushkin as saying.

The 68-year-old president underwent quintuple bypass surgery in November 1996, shortly after his re-election, and has been plagued by a steady string of illnesses through most of his second term. The current bout of pneumonia is his third in as many years.

Yeltsin rarely spends a full working day in the Kremlin, but insists he is strong enough to serve out his term, which ends in mid-2000.