What Is the State of Pope Francis' Health?
For Specola (InfoVaticana.com), this phrase means "nothing good" and "'discreet' sounds very bad".
A day later, on Saturday 15 February, the statement issued by the Holy See Press Office was not much better:
"Francis continued on Saturday to be treated for a respiratory infection at the Agostino Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where laboratory tests indicate an improvement in certain health parameters."
Specola writes that every time Francis goes to hospital it is because there is an emergency or because Massimiliano Strappetti, his nurse, tells him that it is not possible to continue in Santa Marta.
Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, said of Pope Francis' situation that "they will certainly do a CT scan of the chest to see how he is and we will decide to do a bronchoscopy, so that we can collect material and make a more precise diagnosis of the causes".
Andreoni explains that this work "must be carried out on an elderly patient with co-morbidities who is currently experiencing the evolution of an infectious process in the respiratory tract, which unfortunately can lead to more severe respiratory failure and require more or less invasive oxygen therapy".
Matteo Bassetti, Director of Infectious Diseases at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, explained:
"The hospitalisation is functional precisely for these tests, I imagine that they will also consider a contrasted chest computed tomography. Once the microbiological aspect has been studied, bronchial irrigation can be considered.
Then bronchodilator therapy, and they will study whether other treatments can better attack the pathogen".
For Bassetti, "rest is also essential, so hospitalisation and a short period of convalescence away from the seasonal risks that have prevented him from fully recovering is a good idea".
The fact that Pope Francis has bronchitis at a time like this is perfectly normal for Bassetti: "The fact that he looks a little swollen could be due to the chronic use of cortisone.
Bassetti hopes that Pope Francis has had "all the necessary [?] vaccinations", including respiratory syncytial virus.
"I have some doubts about whether it could be aggressive bronchitis: he would not only have lost his voice, but would have had more difficulty breathing, would have needed oxygen and even been hospitalised. It doesn't seem like a serious condition to me, but it doesn't allow him to speak, but it does allow him to attend all the events".
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