BNP chief Khlaeda Zia has told her visitors at Evercare Hospital to pray for her instead of worrying and that Allah will save her, according to her media wing member Shairul Kabir Khan.

“Doctors are monitoring Madam’s situation. She is mentally tough, she has not had a breakdown,” Shairul told Bangla Tribune on Friday.

“Some relatives and party members went to meet Begum Zia after her transfer to the cabin [from the CCU] ... She told them, ‘Do not worry, pray for me. Allah will save me’.”

The medical board formed for her treatment would hold a meeting as usual on Friday, said Dr AZM Zahid Hossain, a member of the panel.

When asked how long the BNP chairperson would have to stay hospitalized, he said the decision was up to the board.

Khaleda Zia was admitted to Evercare Hospital in Dhaka in the early hours of June 11 after she suddenly fell ill.

She was shifted to a cabin from the CCU on Wednesday.

It is the fifth time the BNP chief has been admitted to the hospital since testing positive for Covid-19 in April last year.

Khaleda, who served three times as prime minister, suffers from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes as well as kidney, lung and eye issues.

On February 1, Khaleda returned home after an 81-day stay at the hospital over internal bleeding caused by liver cirrhosis.

The former prime minister was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court had sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018.

Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the government temporarily released Khaleda from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, on condition she stay at her Gulshan home and not leave the country.