Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee's health condition showed marginal improvement on Friday, but still remained critical, doctors said.

Chatterjee underwent a second dialysis on Thursday at Kolkata's premier Belle Vue Clinic. Chatterjee has been on ventilator support since Monday after the medical team at the hospital described his renal function as 'not so good'.

According to hospital sources, there has been no further gastrointestinal bleeding on Friday. However, his haemoglobin had gone down for a while and doctors had to go for two units of blood transfusion.

The 85-year-old Dadasaheb Phalke awardee has been admitted to the ICU for almost 20 days now. The key problem for Chatterjee was Covid-19 encephalopathy, hospital sources said.

His platelet counts are stable for the time being and no platelet transfusion had been done. The count is slowly increasing and there is no temperature as well. The antibiotic is also working on his body, the doctors said.

Chatterjee had tested positive for coronavirus on October 5 and got admitted to the hospital the very next morning.

He was shooting for a documentary titled 'Abhijan' directed by actor Parambrata Chattopadhyay. He last attended shooting at the Bharatlaxmi Studio on October 1. The next shooting schedule was fixed for October 7.