THE medical condition of Mother Teresa of Calcutta deteriorated yesterday, with doctors diagnosing malaria in addition to continuing heart problems, Rahul Bed reports from New Delhi.
A bulletin from the hospital in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta said malaria parasites" had been detected in Mother Teresa's body and her condition had worsened. It did not elaborate further.
The frail 86 year old Albanian born Roman Catholic nun was on a respirator and under sedation, according to the bulletin.
Mother Teresa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her charitable work among Calcutta's poor and destitute, was admitted to the Woodlands nursing home earlier this week with high fever and heart problems.
Until Thursday, however, Dr Asim Kumar Bardhan, who heads the four man team of cardiologists attending her, said she was "stable" and fully conscious.
According to news reports from Calcutta, Mother Teresa's heart had stopped beating for nearly a minute on Thursday, but doctors were able to revive her using electric shocks.
Mother Teresa underwent surgery at the same hospital three years ago to clear a blocked artery in her heart.
But soon afterwards she resumed her hectic routine, travelling around the world and running her Missionaries of Charity order, which manages hundreds of orphanages, hospices and leper homes in Calcutta.
Hundreds of people, both rich and poor, maintained a vigil outside her nursing home, praying for her recovery.
Mother Teresa had her first heart attack in 1983 while on a visit to Rome, followed by a second, near fatal one six years later after which she received a permanent pacemaker.
In 1993, she fell and broke three ribs, was hospitalised for malaria and later that year underwent surgery to clear a blocked vessel in her heart.
Anges Gonxha Bojaxhiu first arrived in Calcutta in 1929 to teach at St Mary's high school, a year after entering the Loreto order of nuns in Dublin and taking the name Teresa.
While travelling to the Himalayan mountain town of Darjeeling in 1946, she says, she received a call from Jesus to serve him and the poorest of the poor. A year later she moved to Calcutta's slums, setting up her first school.
In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity and opened Nirmal Hriday, a home for the dying, followed by an orphanage.
With a special dispensation from the Pope, she announced her resignation in 1990. But in a secret ballot she was re elected unanimously, and withdrew her request to step down.