Doctors issue cautious prognosis on Maradona

Doctors attending to former Argentine football star Diego Maradona have said his pneumonia had improved but that he still needs a breathing machine, reports Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency.

According to a medical report, Maradona remains with respiratory assistance and "two cultures have revealed the presence of cocci bacteria, arranged in chain", which will be properly identified in an antibiogram.

Maradona, considered one of the finest players in soccer history, was rushed to a hospital April 17 after falling ill while watching his old team Boca Juniors play in the Argentine league.

The report said the germs were "probably secondary to the previous infection that triggered the symptoms that led to his hospitalisation due to a fever syndrome, the day prior to his admission to the clinic".

"Stabilised with the administration of decreasing doses of drugs aimed at increasing the strength of heart contractions," his personal doctor Alfredo Cahe said, "he is doing better than Monday and will stay at the clinic for some time".

Since the beginning of 2000, Maradona, 43, resides in Cuba where he receives medical treatment for his heart ailment that put him on the verge of death that year.

The footballer has undergone treatment for drug addiction and weakening of heart after he suffered a heart attack in 2000, believed to have been caused by excessive drug abuse.

Maradona had led his home country to World Cup victory in 1986.