Former US president Clinton leaves hospital after five nights

Washington - Clinton's fever and white blood cell count have normalised, doctor says.

By AFP

Published: Sun 17 Oct 2021, 10:08 PM

Former US president Bill Clinton was released from a California hospital Sunday after spending five nights in treatment for an infection.

Clinton, arm in arm with his wife and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, gave a thumbs up after he walked slowly out of the hospital and shook hands with staff in front of television cameras.

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Clinton, 75, "was discharged from UC Irvine Medical Center today," said a statement by UC Irvine doctor Alpesh Amin released via a Clinton spokesman.

"His fever and white blood cell count are normalized and he will return home to New York to finish his course of antibiotics," added Amin, who oversaw the team of doctors treating the former president.

The US leader from 1993 to 2001 was admitted Tuesday evening to the hospital south of Los Angeles with a non-Covid-related blood infection, his spokesman Angel Urena said on Twitter.

The New York Times, quoting an aide, reported Clinton developed a urinary tract infection that turned into sepsis.

Sepsis is an extreme bodily reaction to infection that affects 1.7 million people in America annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It kills 270,000 of those infected every year.

The infection was the latest health scare for America's 42nd president. In 2004, at age 58, he underwent a quadruple bypass operation after doctors found signs of extensive heart disease.

Six years later he had stents implanted in his coronary artery.