Zambia's former president, Kenneth Kaunda, 97, has been hospitalized with "pneumonia but he does not have COVID" and his health is improving, his aide said Tuesday.

Kaunda, the father of Zambia's independence who led the country for 27 years, was admitted to the Maina Soko Medical Center, a military hospital in Lusaka, on Monday.

"He is being treated for pneumonia but he does not have COVID," his aide Rodrick Ngolo told AFP, denying rumors to that effect.

"The problem of pneumonia comes up regularly (in the ex-president) and every time you hear that he is in hospital, it is because of pneumonia," said Ngolo, adding that the health of the ex-president had "improved" since Monday.

Nicknamed the "African Gandhi" for his non-violent activism, Kaunda led the former British protectorate Northern Rhodesia to bloodless independence in October 1964.