Bright recovery prospects for Stephen Hawking from current illness

22 April 2009

A day after being hospitalised, the prognosis for Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, cosmologist and author, seems bright. His family said today they were looking forward to him making a full recovery.

Hawking, 67, was taken by ambulance to Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, for tests after he fell "very ill", alarming his myriad fans and admirers. But his condition appears to have improved and he was said to be in a "comfortable" condition on Wednesday.

A Cambridge University spokesman said Hawking was still having tests for a condition that was not related to his respiratory infection, and was not life threatening.

"Professor Hawking is being kept in for observation at Addenbrooke's hospital this morning," a spokesman for Cambridge University said. "He is comfortable and his family is looking forward to him making a full recovery."

His first wife Jane Hawking told the media that following a visit, she considered her ex-husband's illness to be not life-threatening, as was first thought. "I'm glad to say that he is being treated very satisfactorily at Addenbrooke's Hospital," she said. "I have been to see him and he's fine – he's doing well." Jane Hawking separated from the renowned professor in 1991.

Hawking has been unwell for a couple of weeks, and earlier this month pulled out of a headline appearance at a science conference in Arizona to recover from a chest infection.