Johannesburg — The news that former South African president, Nelson Mandela, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, has drawn widespread messages of support.
The office of his successor, President Thabo Mbeki acknowledged Mandela's cancer in a statement and joined "millions of our people in wishing him success in his treatment".
Retired Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, who was himself diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, said with a chuckle that he hoped his friend would listen to his doctors and heed their advice.
Mandela, a Nobel Peace laureate who turned 83 last week, began seven weeks of radiotherapy on Tuesday. His spokeswoman, Zelda la Grange, announced earlier that "the (microscopic) cancer is not of a high grade and should not decrease Mr Mandela's life span".
She said: "He is very positive. Mr Mandela has got a positive attitude toward life. No matter what happens, he has a way of dealing with things in a positive way. I think it's a thing that he'll approach positively and hopefully the doctors will do the rest."
La Grange said that the treatment Mandela would undergo, as an outpatient, would not require any surgery or chemotherapy and would be localised to the prostate gland. The spokesman concluded that the former president felt "strong" and his "general health remains excellent and he will be able to maintain most of his local and overseas commitments".
But Mandela's daily 10-15 minute radiotherapy regime may conflict with the octogenarian's hectic and demanding schedule, which includes mediating an end to the civil war in Burundi. He returned from chairing a Burundi peace summit on Monday.
Mandela regularly travels all over South Africa and around the world as an unofficial ambassador for his country. His globe-trotting has recently taken him to Britain, France, Morocco, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
He retired as president in 1999, after just one five-year term in office as the first elected black South African leader in a non-racial national poll. Mandela handed power to his deputy president, Thabo Mbeki, who also heads the governing African National Congress party.
Archbishop Tutu, a veteran leader of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa during Mandela's last years in prison, said Tuesday, "there is life after prostate cancer". Tutu should know. The energetic clergyman is still fighting the disease.
The South African National Cancer Registry says prostate cancer is one of the most common forms of the disease, affecting men aged 75+. White men are twice as vulnerable as black men to prostate cancer.
Mandela, who is probably the most respected statesman in the world, is said, by his urologist Dr Louis Gecelter, to be an excellent and cooperative patient, who never complains and complies with treatment. Part of Mandela's prostate gland was removed in 1985 to clear a urinary blockage, after benign tumours were discovered.
Gecelter, who was part of Mandela's 1985 medical and surgical team, confirmed that his patient's life was not at risk. He said the cancer was found three to four years before it would have started causing trouble, Mandela was not currently experiencing any symptoms and was not sick.
The doctor said the treatment would not affect Mandela's lifestyle at all. "It's a very early case of cancer of the prostate, and he should be cured. This isn't going to impact on his life expectancy. He's going to live until one hundred and plenty years."
Gecelter added: "We can be very accurate in this treatment. With new computers and lasers, we can focus on the prostate without doing any damage to the rectum or bladder. We're going to cure the cancer. The radiation therapy is a curative attempt, not a palliative treatment."
Mandela is currently writing a second volume of memoirs, which follows his first autobiography entitled Long Walk to Freedom. He spent 27 years in apartheid prisons, before his release on 11 February 1990, after which he led the transition from white minority to black majority government and a constitutional democracy in South Africa.
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Mandela's long imprisonment took its toll on his health. In the 1980s, he was treated for tuberculosis. Breaking stones in the lime quarries on Robben Island (prison), is thought to have damaged his eyes for which he has undergone surgery. He also has a recurrent knee problem, after a bad fall. He looked visibly frail at the recent summit of the Organisation of African Unity in Lusaka, Zambia, and had to be helped up the steps to the venue for a mini-summit on Burundi.
On the same day Mandela marked his 83rd birthday on 18 July, the former South African president also celebrated his third wedding anniversary to Graca Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique. Smiling, he earlier told reporters he would like to spend his birthday with his family and "forget about the problems of the world".
A patron of children's charities and his own Mandela Foundation, he told a young journalist on his birthday, "I feel as young as you, young man", attributing his legendary stamina to rising early and a comparatively spartan diet.
