Vatican City: The 86-year-old Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will require "a few days" in the hospital for treatment, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to the statement, the 86-year-old pontiff was taken to Rome's Gemelli hospital after claiming to have breathing problems recently. He tested positive for the infection but negative for COVID-19, it said.

According to the Vatican, "Pope Francis is touched by the numerous messages received and expresses his gratitude for the closeness and prayer."

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Francis, who celebrated his tenth anniversary as pope this month, occasionally experiences breathing difficulties and is generally more susceptible to them. In his early 20s, while undergoing priestly training in his native Argentina, he had a portion of one lung removed.

His most recent hospitalisation occurs before a Palm Sunday service on April 2 that ushers in a busy week of ceremonies leading up to Easter Sunday on April 9, raising questions about his ability to preside over them as usual.

In the past two years, Francis' health has come under more scrutiny. During this time, he has had colon surgery and started using a wheelchair or a walking stick because of chronic knee pain.

The pope went to the hospital on Wednesday for a scheduled check-up, according to the Vatican's initial statement. However, according to Italian media, he arrived in an ambulance after abruptly postponing a television interview. Francis appeared to be in good health as he attended his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square in the morning.

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The pope has not visited his native country since leaving for the Vatican ten years ago, so the faithful in Argentina prayed for his recovery.
If the Pope could hear us, Marcela Mazzini, a professor at the Inmaculada Concepcion Seminary in Buenos Aires, where the pope, who was then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, studied, said, "I would tell him that we need him because the reform that he faced is not finished."

The future pope, who was the son of Italian immigrants, led a simple life as the archbishop of Buenos Aires. He commuted by public transportation and kept a low profile when he visited the underprivileged in shanty towns, where many people still remember him.

Diverticulitis, a condition that can infect or swell the colon, affects the leader of the world's nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics. In 2021, he underwent surgery at the Gemelli hospital to have a portion of his colon removed.

Francis stated in an interview from last year that he preferred not to have surgery on his problematic knee because he did not want to experience the same anesthesia-related side effects that he did following the operation in 2021.

When Francis returned from a trip to Canada in July of last year, he acknowledged that his ageing and his difficulty walking may have signalled the beginning of a new, slower phase of his papacy.

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But since then, he has travelled to places like Kazakhstan and Bahrain, and just last month, he visited South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Additionally, he has committed to travelling to Portugal in August, Hungary in late April, and Marseille in France in September. If possible, he has stated that he would like to fly from Marseille to Mongolia.

Francis has said he would only follow Benedict XVI's example if he were seriously disabled, despite applauding his late predecessor's historic decision to resign on health grounds in 2013.