ROME — The Vatican on Friday said Pope Francis’ health has continued to improve after his release from hospital. The 88-year-old is still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nose, but at a lower dose, a Vatican spokesman said. Francis is also having fewer problems speaking than earlier this week, the spokesman added.

Pope Francis is expected to be discharged on Sunday from the Rome hospital where he spent five weeks battling the most severe health crisis of his papacy, Francis’s doctors said on Saturday. The 88-year old pope will return to his home at a Vatican City boardinghouse for what his doctors described as a “convalescence” of at least two months.

In an interview, the leader of Pope Francis’s medical team called it “a miracle” that the 88-year-old pontiff left the hospital, but said he needs to change his vigorous habits, at least for a while,