The health ministry on Sunday denied a report that Egypt's ailing former president Hosni Mubarak had fallen into a "full coma," two weeks before he is due to go on trial for murder and corruption.
"The former president is in a full coma after his health suddenly deteriorated," state television quoted Mubarak's lawyer as saying.
But Deputy Health Minister Adel Adawi denied the 83-year-old toppled leader had gone into a coma.
"The condition of former president Mubarak is stable and he is still being treated in his room on the third floor of Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital," Adawi told the official MENA news agency.
Earlier, the head of the hospital in the Red Sea resort where Mubarak has been treated since April denied that the former strongman had gone into a coma, state TV reported.
"Sharm el-Sheikh hospital chief denies reports of Mubarak coma," according to a scrolling headline on the television.
However, another medical source was less clear-cut, telling AFP: "It seems there has been some deterioration in his health, but the reports of a coma are still unclear."
Mubarak has been in the Sharm el-Sheikh hospital since he suffered a heart attack during questioning over alleged fraud and the killing of protesters during the uprising which ousted him on February 11.
Last month, Mubarak's lawyer Farid al-Dib said the former president had "stomach cancer and the tumours are growing."
But a health ministry official said there was no proof to back the claims.
"The health ministry does not have a single scientific document saying that Mubarak has cancer," Abdelhamid Abaza, an assistant to the health minister, was quoted as saying by Al-Ahram and Al-Masry Al-Youm newspapers.
In March 2010, Mubarak went to Germany for surgery. Doctors at the time said he had suffered from chronic calculus cholecystitis -- an inflammation of the gall bladder accompanied by gall stones -- and a duodenal polyp.
The ex-president, who is due to face trial on August 3, has denied accusations he was involved in corruption and had ordered the killing of protesters to put down the unrest which broke out on January 25, leaving nearly 850 people dead.
"I would never participate in the killing of Egyptian citizens and would never seize state money and I have never acquired anything illegally," he told investigators, in a transcript published by the independent daily Al-Dustur.
"I gave orders to deal with the protesters without violence, peacefully, without the use of weapons, or bullets or even carrying weapons during the protests," Mubarak reportedly said.
On Saturday, officials said Mubarak's trial would most likely be held in Sharm el-Sheikh for security reasons.
He could either be put in the dock or questioned by court officials in his hospital room, with the rest of the trial proceedings taking place in a court room, one official said.
An interior ministry official told AFP the trial location "has not been completely settled, but Mubarak will most likely be tried in Sharm el-Sheikh."
It was not immediately clear whether his two sons would be transferred to a Sharm el-Sheikh prison from Cairo if the hearings take place in the popular holiday resort.
Protesters who have staged a sit-in for more than a week in Cairo's Tahrir Square, epicentre of the demonstrations that ousted Mubarak, demand his transfer to Cairo and accuse the ruling military of delaying the trials of former regime officials.
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