The health of Norway’s King Harald deteriorated over the weekend while in hospital, the royal household has said.
Harald, 89, Europe’s oldest current head of state, was hospitalised on Monday and treated for anaemia.
In a statement on Sunday, the palace said: ‘His Majesty the King’s health deteriorated over the weekend.
‘The King is receiving antibiotics for a bacterial infection in his blood, and has responded to this treatment.’
The statement added that the monarch’s condition was stable.
It comes after King Harald was rushed to hospital with haemolytic anaemia, a disorder which sees red blood cells destroyed at an abnormally fast rate and leads to fatigue, paleness and breathing difficulties.
The head of state was admitted to hospital in Oslo and will be on sick leave for the next two weeks, it was reported on Monday.
The palace said in a statement: ‘The King has been treated with cortisone for the blood disease haemolytic anaemia in recent weeks.
King Harald of Norway, pictured in February, was admitted to hospital on Monday after suffering from shortness of breath
Queen Sonja and Harald in 2018
The King pictured in Oslo in March
‘This has led to fluid accumulation in the body that requires treatment in hospital.
‘The King is on sick leave for two weeks. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is Regent during this period.
‘We will return to the consequences this will have for the Royal House’s official programme.’
Harald visited the hospital only days ago for a ‘planned check-up and follow-up with a doctor’.
And in February the 89-year-old was rushed to hospital while spending time with his wife, Norwegian Queen Sonja, 89, in Tenerife.
The monarch’s condition at the time was said to have been ‘satisfactory’ after he received treatment for an infection and dehydration at Hospital Universitario Hospiten Sur.
It came just two years after he suffered a similar problem while on holiday in Malaysia. That ordeal resulted in him having a pacemaker fitted.
The monarch has, however, insisted that he will never abdicate from his position due to poor health, arguing that he took a lifelong oath before ascending to the throne in 1991.
Harald has been suffering from haemolytic anaemia, a disorder which sees red blood cells destroyed at an abnormally fast rate and leads to fatigue, paleness and breathing difficulties
‘I stick by what I’ve always said, that I swore an oath to the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) and it is for life,’ he said previously.
Harald has presided over a difficult few months for the Norwegian royal family amid a scandal involving his daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Mette-Marit faced intense scrutiny when a tranche from the Epstein Files revealed she stayed at the paedophile financier’s Palm Beach mansion in 2013 – after his conviction for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
One email suggested she was still in contact with Epstein just months before his death.
Mette-Marit, 53, who was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, later issued a grovelling apology in which she claimed the emails ‘do not represent the person who I want to be’.
Harald defended his daughter-in-law during a public appearance that month in which he insisted: ‘We must remember that the Crown Princess has not done anything illegal.
‘Unlike some others in Norway, she broke the connection very early. So I think we should give her credit for that.’
It came in the same week that Queen Sonja was rushed to Oslo’s National Hospital after experiencing ‘heart problems’.
At the time, a statement from the Norwegian Royal House read: ‘Her Majesty the Queen was admitted to the National Hospital today due to heart problems.
‘The Queen has heart fibrillation and heart failure, and has been hospitalised for a few days for examinations and observation.’
Sonja was later discharged and said to have been in ‘much better form’. The 89-year-old had a pacemaker fitted last year after experiencing cardiac fibrillation – a rapid and irregular heartbeat.
Harald became Norway’s Crown Prince in 1957 after the death of his grandfather. He married Sonja in 1968 before becoming the monarch 23 years later when his father, King Olav, passed away.
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