Zimbabwe’s ailing Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has reportedly returned home after a brief admission to a South African hospital over the weekend.

According to New Zimbabwe.com, Chiwenga returned to the southern African nation this week and attended a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

State media published pictures of the vice president sitting next to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and other Vice President Kembo Mohadi during the cabinet meeting, said the report.

According to Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), Chiwenga laughed off media claims that he had been on his deathbed at the South African hospital.

Chiwenga allegedly took ill after attending a brief Zanu-PFP Politburo meeting and checked in at Avenues Clinic — an elite hospital in the capital Harare, according to the privately-owned NewsDay newspaper.

Chiwenga was later airlifted to a hospital in Cape Town after his health deteriorated over the weekend.  

Government, in October, said the VP was being treated for "exhaustion" and for injuries sustained during the war of liberation  in the 1970s.

Chiwenga and his wife, Marry, have been showing signs of illness, with visibly swollen hands and discoloured skin patches, something he said was due to poisoning.

Chiwenga appeared agitated and angrily fidgety in recent public appearances, raising fears about his health, added the report.

Last year, Chiwenga suggested he was paying the price for removing former President Robert Mugabe, triggering speculation he might have been poisoned.

According to ZW news, an unnamed senior government source said Chiwenga’s condition has sent the government into a panic mode.

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