The health of Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who has been in hospital with pneumonia since February 5, has deteriorated further, the government said Wednesday.
The Prime Minister’s office had said Tuesday that Lee, 91, who is on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of Singapore General Hospital, had an infection and was being treated with antibiotics.
“Mr Lee Kuan Yew remains critically ill in the ICU and has deteriorated further,” the office said in its latest update.
Later Wednesday, a top government spokesman dismissed as a hoax a report that Singapore’s founding father had died. A message about Lee’s supposed demise, purporting to be from the current Prime Minister, had circulated online.
“We have reported this to the police and they are investigating this hoax. Our website was not hacked, it was a doctored image,” Farah Rahim, senior director for the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Information said.
Born in 1923, Lee co-founded the city state in 1965 when it declared its independence from Malaysia and was its prime minister for more than three decades.
Lee was succeeded as prime minister by Goh Chok Tong in 1990, before Lee Kuan Yew’s son Lee Hsien Loong took power in August 2004.
The elder Lee has been credited with Singapore’s remarkable transformation from a colonial trading post to a prosperous financial center.
However, he has also been a divisive figure, attracting criticism for stifling media freedom and for the harsh treatment of political opponents.