A major step forward by Kenya in the fight against cancer, especially in early detection of the disease. Kenyatta University Hospital in Nairobi has opened an integrated and molecular imaging center that has no equal in all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Until now, thousands of patients each year were forced to travel abroad to get the tests that would allow proper treatment for the disease, which has been growing exponentially in Kenya over the past decade.
With the Government's acquisition of a cyclotron machine and ultra-modern positron emission tomography (PET-CT), it is now possible to detect cancer in its early stages and save lives. A cyclotron is a machine that produces radioactive isotopes that are used to get sharper images of areas within the human body.
A PET-CT scan, on the other hand, has a wide range of uses in the early detection of cancer, heart disease and brain disorders. In the case of cancer, PET-CT can show how far the cancer has spread.
Kenyatta University Hospital is the first public hospital in East and Central Africa to offer such services.
Obviously (and unfortunately) not everyone will be able to afford these treatments; it is the sad reality of a country that is trying to move out of the bracket of needy and vulnerable nations, but whose social inequalities do not help. However, compared to those who are insured, who will benefit from a bonus of kes. 60,000 for this particular type of examinations, those who will pay cash will spend Kes 55,000 and there is a special rate for Kenyan citizens registered with Kenya's mutual insurance, namely the National Hospital Insurance Funds (NHIF), standardized rate of about Kes. 40.000.
On the other hand, Kenyatta University Hospital is a private facility, even if of high level and with oncology departments, as well as cardiology and other specialties, of continental level.