JOHANNESBURG — President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that Nelson Mandela remained in critical condition for a second day in a hospital in Pretoria where he is being treated for a lung infection.
“Doctors are doing everything possible to ensure his well-being and comfort,” Mr. Zuma said at a news conference in Johannesburg, but he gave few details about the condition of Mr. Mandela, who was hospitalized on June 8.
Mr. Zuma spoke as South Africans and admirers around the world awaited word on the condition of Mr. Mandela, the iconic leader who played a towering role in his country’s transition from white minority rule under the system of apartheid to multiracial democracy in 1994.
Mr. Zuma said that he and Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president of the governing African National Congress, visited Mr. Mandela late Sunday.
“Given the hour, he was already asleep. We were there, looked at him, saw him and then we had a bit of a discussion with the doctors and his wife,” Mr. Zuma said. “I don’t think I’m in a position to give further details. I’m not a doctor.”
Doctors told Mr. Zuma on Sunday evening that Mr. Mandela’s health “had become critical over the past 24 hours,” according to an earlier statement from the presidency.
In the statement on Sunday, Mr. Zuma said that doctors were doing “everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable.” Madiba is Mr. Mandela’s clan name.
The language used in the statement was the strongest yet concerning Mr. Mandela’s health.
On Saturday, the president, seeking to play down news reports about Mr. Mandela’s deteriorating health, described his condition as “serious but stable.”
Mr. Mandela, who was freed by the apartheid government in 1990 after 27 years of imprisonment, became South Africa’s first black president after the country’s first all-race elections in 1994. He retired from public life in 2004.
He has not been seen in public since the World Cup soccer final in South Africa in July 2010 and has been hospitalized four times since December, mostly for the pulmonary condition that has plagued him for years.
The South African government faced criticism over the weekend after it confirmed reports that the military ambulance carrying Mr. Mandela to the hospital had broken down, leaving him waiting on the roadside until a replacement vehicle arrived.
Mr. Zuma said he had been assured by doctors that “all care” had been taken to ensure that Mr. Mandela’s condition was not compromised during that time. Media reports that Mr. Mandela had suffered a cardiac arrest on that same night contained “no truth,” he added
“There were seven doctors in the convoy who were in full control of the situation throughout the period,” he said. “He had expert medical care.”
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