Doctors: Mandela 'Much Better'

President Jacob Zuma's office announced former President Nelson Mandela "has made progress" in getting better after contracting a lung infection, December 12, 2012

South Africa says former president Nelson Mandela is making "steady improvement" a week after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

A statement from President Jacob Zuma's office Wednesday said Mandela's doctors are reporting he is responding to treatment and "doing much better" than when he arrived last week.

The 94-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was admitted late last Wednesday, his third hospitalization in four months.

Mandela has been vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment for fighting apartheid, South Africa's white racist rule.

He became South Africa's first black president in 1994.