The government of Kenya is now planning to seek the help of Chinese doctors in a bid to suppress the troublesome and deadly cancer menace, it has emerged.
The government has also revealed that it will be seeking to import medics from India and the United States, having identified the countries as more skilled in combating the ailment.
Ministry of Health Director-General Wekesa Masasabi has confirmed the plans, saying that the government is seeking to maximize the partnerships it has with these countries.
"We already have broad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with these countries, so we will look into which ones we can tweak to include this,” he told the Standard on Thursday.
He said that Kenya has decided to leave Cuba out on this one, after realizing that the mentioned countries are far more skilled on Cancer treatment as compared to Cuba.
“We were exploring Cuba but we were later informed that their expertise in cancer does not rank that high internationally,” he added.
In 2018, the government imported 100 Cuban doctors who were primary specialists in family medicine and spread across the 47 counties.
However, this was criticized by Kenyans, who bashed the state for importing foreign medics and paying them better, instead of bettering the working conditions of local doctors.
Kenya currently has 35 oncologists, who are having to deal with the many cancer cases in the country, with 47,000 new cases being reported annually.
Majority of those with ability to seek foreign medical intervention have been trooping to India for medication, given that only few local medical facilities can provide the same.