Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi "is not very well", key ally Matteo Salvini said Friday, but he and others insisted the 84-year-old would soon be out of hospital.

The media mogul, who has suffered from increasing health problems in recent years, was admitted to San Raffaele hospital in Milan on Tuesday for complications linked to a coronavirus infection last year.

"I spoke to Berlusconi ... he's not very well but he'll pull through, being the fighter that he is," Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, told RAI public radio. 

Berlusconi has been in and out of hospital in recent months. In September, after being hospitalised for 11 days with Covid-19-related pneumonia, he said he had a close brush with death.

Business daily Il Sole 24 said Friday that Berlusconi's condition had taken a turn for the worse due to an intestinal infection, but the report was unconfirmed.

The former premier's personal doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, sought to quash concerns, tweeting, "Every working day at the San Raffaele is very busy. ALL of my patients are fine. Get over it."

Meanwhile, a senator from Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, Licia Ronzulli, was quoted by the AGI news agency as saying that the ex-premier was going to be discharged "in the coming days."

"It's not the time for obituaries, there's still a long, long time for them," she added.