Vice President Constantino Chiwenga was admitted to a hospital in Harare on Thursday for what sources described as a “long-planned procedure” ZimLive reports.

The 65-year-old former army general is said to have arrived at the Trauma Centre and Hospital in Borrowdale just before 3 PM in a six-vehicle convoy flashing blue lights, with sirens turned off.

A witness told the publication that Chiwenga walked into the privately-owned hospital unaided and appeared in good physical health.

A senior government source told ZimLive:

He is due to have surgery to correct some discomfort in his stomach. It must be routine, otherwise he would have gone to China.

It was unclear how long Chiwenga who doubles as the Minister of Health and Child Care would stay at the hospital which is owned by Zimbabwe-born doctor Vivek Solanki, who has Serbian roots. It is the go-to hospital for Zimbabwe’s elite.

From 2018 to 2019, the vice president was treated in India, South Africa and China while battling what he later said was idiopathic oesophageal structure. He said it involves a blockage of the oesophagus.

His treatment in China lasted six months before he returned home in December 2019 looking transformed.

Chiwenga recently married his long-time girlfriend Miniyothabo Baloyi.