The former US president George HW Bush has been admitted to a Houston hospital after contracting an infection that spread to his blood, a family spokesman said on Monday.

Bush, 93, was admitted to Houston Methodist hospital on Sunday, a day after a funeral was held for his wife, Barbara Bush, spokesman Jim McGrath said.

The statement also said the former president appeared to be recovering.

Barbara Bush was laid to rest Saturday in a ceremony attended by her husband and former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W Bush and their wives, along with the current first lady, Melania Trump.

The elder Bush uses a wheelchair and an electric scooter for mobility after developing a form of Parkinson’s disease, and he has needed hospital treatment several times in recent years for respiratory problems.

A year ago this month, Bush spent two weeks in the hospital for treatment of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis, a constant irritation of the lining of tubes that carry air to one’s lungs. Bush’s doctors said chronic bronchitis is a condition more prevalent with age and can aggravate the symptoms of pneumonia.

Bush was hospitalized for 16 days in January 2017 for pneumonia. During that hospital stay, which included time in intensive care, doctors inserted a breathing tube and connected him to a ventilator.

He also was hospitalized in 2015 in Maine after falling at home and breaking a bone in his neck, and in December 2014 for about a week for shortness of breath. He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.

George Herbert Walker Bush served as president from 1989 to 1993. Born 12 June 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, Bush also served as a congressman, the CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice-president.



