The Ugandan government is set to airlift 400 cancer patients for treatment in the country.

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Initially, reports from Kampala indicated the patients would receive radiotherapy care at the Kenyatta National Hospital before the decision was dropped and the patients directed to the Aga Khan Hospital, Parklands.

A Ugandan daily quoted Uganda Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi as saying the patients will be flow to Kenya as Kampala procures a bunker for a new cancer machine.

Uganda has approximately 32,000 new cancer cases and about 55 per cent (about 17,600) of these in urgent need of radiotherapy treatment, data from the country's Health ministry indicates.

The East African country has only one radiotherapy machine which was donated to the country's main hospital, Mulago, in 1995.

The machine is said to have undergone several repairs since then.

The radiotherapy machine's breakdown elicited sharp criticism of President Yoweri Museveni recently reelected in a poll claimed by his main challenger Dr Kiiza Besigye was rigged.

Museveni has been in power for the last 30 years.

Kenya already has a strained Health sector which does not have the capacity to attend to all cancer cases in the country.