Former President George H.W. Bush, 93, was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital April 22, just one day after his wife Barbara Bush's funeral, for an infection that spread to his bloodstream, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Family spokesperson Jim McGrath announced the 41st president's hospitalization in a tweet April 23 around 6 p.m. However, by the evening of April 23, Mr. McGrath said the former president's condition was improving.
"President Bush was admitted to the Houston Methodist Hospital yesterday morning after contracting an infection that spread to his blood," Mr. McGrath wrote April 23. "He is responding to treatments and appears to be recovering. We will issue additional updates as events warrant."
Mr. McGrath did not confirm whether Mr. Bush was in intensive care and did not clarify why the family chose to wait a day to announce his condition.
Mild blood infections do not always turn into sepsis, and it is likely the former president will recover, Coburn Allen, MD, an infectious disease specialist with Austin-based Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, told the Houston Chronicle.
"It sounds like he was septic at first because they said he was stabilized — and generally if they say you're stabilized it means you weren't at one point," he said. "Generally if you get through the unstable part with a bloodstream infection, you don't go back to unstable, so it's likely he'll recover completely."
Mr. Bush was moved from the hospital's intensive care unit April 25 and will stay at the hospital for several more days while he recovers, according to The Dallas Morning News.
This article was updated on April 26 at 8:49 a.m. CT.