Before Johnson, Leaders Who Ended Up In Hospital

Paris, April 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Apr, 2020 ) :British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is battling the coronavirus in intensive care, is not the first world leader to have been admitted to hospital or stricken by illness while in power.

Here are some examples from the last few decades.

- Jair Bolsonaro - At the start of his term in January 2019, far-right Brazilian President Bolsonaro was hospitalised for more than two weeks, undergoing abdominal surgery after being stabbed in September 2018 on the campaign trail.

His vice president took over briefly, but two days after his operation on January 28 he took back over, slowly running the country from his hospital bed.

- Ali Bongo Ondimba - Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba was rushed to hospital on October 24, 2018, after suffering a stroke in Riyadh. He spent several months in hospital in Morocco before returning to Gabon in late March 2019.

- Abdelaziz Bouteflika - Algerian President Bouteflika suffered a stroke in early 2013, and stayed in hospital abroad for nearly three months.

Very weakened physically, he remained in power upon his return despite major after-effects and rarely left his medicalised residence.

He was re-elected in 2014, but his decision to seek a fifth term in 2019 sparked an unprecedented protest movement which led him to resign on April 2, 2019.

- Hugo Chavez - Venezuela's leftist president Chavez was weakened after being diagnosed with cancer in June 2011. He underwent several operations and chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments, before dying on March 5, 2013.

- Ariel Sharon - Israeli premier Sharon suffered a stroke in January 2006 that left him in a coma.

In power for the past five years, he was declared unfit to carry out his duties after 100 days in hospital, in a first in Israeli history. He died eight years later, on January 11, 2014, without emerging from his coma.

- Jacques Chirac - French President Chirac suffered a minor stroke in September 2005 for which he was admitted to hospital for a week.

- Boris Yeltsin - Russian President Yeltsin in November 1996 underwent a multiple coronary bypass operation. The next day he signed a decree taking back the powers that he had temporarily transferred to prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, having been almost absent from the public scene since his previous heart attack in June.

- Ronald Reagan - On March 30, 1981, Reagan, the 40th president of the United States who had come to power two months earlier, was wounded in the left lung in a gun attack as he left a Washington hotel. In his 70s, he underwent an emergency operation and quickly recovered.

The gunman, John Hinckley, 25, said he acted to proclaim his love for the actress Jodie Foster.

- Francisco Franco - Spanish dictator Franco, who led Spain with an iron grip from 1939, was admitted to hospital in July 1974 suffering from thrombosis. He temporarily handed his powers as head of state to Prince Juan Carlos, doing so again in October 1975, before dying on November 20, 1975.

- Georges Pompidou - French President Pompidou, who died mid-term on April 2, 1974, had kept secret his lymphoma-type illness, which had forced him to cancel numerous engagements under various pretexts.