Doctors confident of Tutu recovery: family

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu is expected to spend at least a third night in hospital where he is being treated for a persistent infection, his daughter said Thursday.

The 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate was admitted to hospital in Cape Town on Tuesday for treatment with intravenous antibiotics, which could take anything from three to five days, Mpho Tutu told a news conference.

The infection was not connected with the prostate cancer which Tutu has lived with for 15 years, she said, but it was “below the belt”.

Mpho Tutu said her father was in good spirits and doctors were confident of his recovery.

“My dad has a deep passion for many causes and concerns and has been a voice for those facing injustice in this world,” she said.

“But he not quite as young as he looks. Recognise his energy is waning.”

The well-loved anti-apartheid icon last December cancelled plans to travel to a meeting of Nobel laureates in Rome, as he battled the cancer.

He was hospitalised in 2011 for minor elective surgery, and again in 2013 year for a persistent infection, but tests at that time showed no new malignancy.

Under apartheid, Tutu campaigned against white minority rule during the years that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.

He was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

Officially retired, he is still outspoken on the world’s injustices, and is widely viewed as South Africa’s moral compass.