JERUSALEM - Ariel Sharon's condition has improved and he has been taken out of intensive care after suffering pneumonia, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (R) looks at a map in southern Israel, July 5, 2005. The same day an uneasy truce took effect in the Lebanon war, doctors treating Sharon reported a sharp deterioration in his condition as he lay comatose in a Tel Aviv hospital. [Reuters]

The former prime minister, 78, has been in a coma since he suffered the second of two strokes on January 4. He has since undergone several extensive brain operations to stop cerebral hemorrhaging, in addition to other relatively minor procedures.

Sharon was transferred back to the respiratory rehabilitation department at Tel Aviv's Chaim Sheba Medical Center Tuesday since there has been a "noticeable improvement in his kidney function and the pneumonia in his lungs," spokesman David Weinberg said.