Rock star Vasco Rossi's hospital stay prolonged

Italian rock star Vasco Rossi, 60, will be laid up in the hospital longer than expected, and will need the concentrated efforts of a team of specialists to help him recover, a hospital statement said Monday. Vasco Rossi, dubbed "Komandante" by fans, has sold more than 30 million albums over his 30-year career. Rossi was checked into the Villalba private clinic in Bologna on Thursday for "some routine checks" according to his publicist Tania Sachs, who added that the hospitalization had been scheduled. Sachs said Rossi had been undergoing such checks every two to three months for more than a year. "Vasco is well, but we don't know yet when he will leave," Rossi's wife, Laura Schmidt, said arriving at the private clinic Monday morning. "From the tests conducted, the need emerged to reactivate not-so-brief therapy, which implies an extension of his in-patient stay," wrote Paolo Guelfi, health director at the Villalba clinic, in a bulletin released Monday. "The condition of the patient remains stationary and requires maximum concentration and collaboration of various specialists," Guelfi added. The rocker was treated for bone-marrow infection and heart inflammation osteomyelitis and endocarditis - at the Villalba clinic for more than a month in the summer of 2011. He was described in the Italian press as being "hit" by a "killer bacteria".