Swedish prime minister falls ill after Ethiopia trip

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was rushed to a local hospital on Thursday shortly after returning from a United Nations summit in Ethiopia.

The head of state was taken to Karolinska hospital here with apparent food poisoning, the public broadcaster SVT reported.

"He had acute nausea and was taken in for a doctor's check," Lofven's press secretary Ann Ekberg told SVT.

Lofven had just returned from a conference in Addis Ababa chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon but only began to feel symptoms once he landed in Stockholm.

"I don't want to speculate, but it sounds like some kind of food poisoning. But the tests showed no indication that he needed to stay at the hospital," Ekberg said.

A spokesperson for Karolinska hospital declined to comment on the nature of Lofven's symptoms.

"He felt ill when he arrived and was checked. We are very sparse with information in these cases. That applies to everyone, even the prime minister," Klas Ostman said.

The prime minister was discharged in the early afternoon and later gave a mute thumbs-up to reporters upon arriving at his official residence in downtown Stockholm. Endit