The British-born wife of Bashar al-Assad, Asma, has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the Syrian president’s office has announced via its social media accounts.

The postings included a photograph of the first lady with an IV line in her arm and smiling at her husband, who is sitting next to her, while apparently undergoing treatment in a hospital.

“With strength and confidence and faith, Mrs Asma al-Assad begins the preliminary stage of treatment for a malignant tumor in the breast that was discovered early,” the statement said. “From its heart, the presidency and all those who work in it wish Mrs Asma a speedy recovery.”

The public acknowledgment is a rare disclosure of a serious health matter in the top echelons of an Arab state. Ailing autocrats in the region usually treat such issues as grave national security secrets. The long illness of the president’s father, Hafez, who ruled Syria for decades, was a closely guarded secret even as he appeared frailer in public in the last months of his life.

A controversial figure, Asma al-Assad has rarely spoken publicly about the civil war in Syria, which has raged for more than seven years during which has claimed half a million lives. The former banker, who has dual nationality, has instead appeared at public events with her husband and focused on humanitarian initiatives in government-controlled parts of Syria, as well as in images comforting government soldiers.

Once dubbed by Vogue as a “rose in the desert” championing democratic reforms in Syria, she has been personally sanctioned by the European Union and has faced calls to strip her of British citizenship since the start of the conflict. In a rare interview in 2016 with the the Kremlin-backed TV station RT, she acknowledged the suffering on both sides of the war and said she had rejected offers of asylum outside the country during the crisis.

She married the Syrian president in 2000, and they have three children.