Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu back in hospital for 'inflammation'

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu was readmitted to a hospital for medical care on Monday, according to his family.

After suffering from a persistent infection, Tutu, 83, was last month admitted to a hospital in Cape Town for three weeks before being discharged earlier this month.

His daughter, Canon Mpho Tutu, told reporters the return trip was due to unrelated "inflammation," but she did not elaborate.

"He is 83, not 38," she told CNN. "So bouncing back from an illness is not quite as easy as it once was."

The Anglican archbishop won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work to end apartheid in South Africa, but he retired from public life in 2011.

Tutu, also a U.S. Congressional Medal of Freedom recipient, has remained active through the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation and other organizations but was hospitalized for infection in 2013 and last year canceled travel plans due to a long-running battle with prostate cancer.