Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter under hospice care at home

The Carter Center said on Saturday that former US president Jimmy Carter had entered hospital treatment.

A charity created by the 98-year-old former president said on Twitter that after a short hospital stay, Carter “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care rather than additional medical intervention.”

He said he has the full support of his medical team and his family, who “ask for privacy at this time and are grateful for the concern shown by our many admirers.”

Carter, a Democrat, became the 39th US president when he defeated former president Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He served one term and was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In August 2015, Carter had a small cancerous mass removed from his liver. The following year, Carter announced that he no longer needed treatment, as an experimental drug had eliminated the signs of cancer.

Carter celebrated his most recent birthday in October with family and friends in Plains, the small Georgia town where he and his wife, Rosalynn, were born in the years between World War I and the Great Depression.

The Carter Center, founded by the 39th president and former first lady after one term in the White House, last year marked 40 years of promoting democracy and conflict resolution, monitoring elections, and improving public health in developing countries.

James Earl Carter Jr. won the 1976 presidential election after beginning his campaign as a little-known Georgia governor, one-on-one. The surprise performance in the Iowa caucuses established the small Midwestern state as the center of presidential politics. Carter then defeated Ford in the general election, largely because of his strength in sweeping the South before his home region shifted to the Republicans.