The death of Tooro King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV has drawn renewed attention to Uganda’s limited access to advanced cancer diagnostic technology after a PET scan in Nairobi helped establish that the monarch had angiosarcoma following inconclusive investigations in Kampala.
King Oyo, who died aged 34 in the United States on August 27, 2026, had begun experiencing persistent back and rib pain in mid-2025. According to an account delivered on behalf of Queen Mother Best Kemigisa during his burial in Fort Portal on September 12, an X-ray at The Surgery Hospital in Naguru did not establish the cause of the pain, while a subsequent MRI at Ruby Hospital in Kampala also failed to identify the underlying illness.
The monarch later travelled to Nairobi, where a PET scan at Aga Khan Hospital revealed angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer. He subsequently received treatment in Germany and the United States before his death.
The case has raised questions about Uganda’s ability to diagnose some cancers locally, particularly those that may not be apparent through conventional anatomical imaging.
A PET scan — Positron Emission Tomography — differs from an X-ray or MRI in what it measures. While MRI primarily provides detailed images of the body’s structures, PET imaging uses radioactive tracers to show metabolic activity in tissues and can help identify abnormal cellular activity.
The Uganda Medical Association president, Dr Frank Asiimwe, told Daily Monitor that specialised equipment remains one of the challenges facing disease diagnosis in Uganda. He cautioned, however, against assuming that the absence of a PET scanner was necessarily responsible for the delay in King Oyo’s diagnosis.
“Most cancers present like many other diseases with just pain and discomfort,” Asiimwe said, adding that even advanced equipment has limits in detecting cancers at very early stages.
Government plans PET centre
The government says it has been working for several years to establish PET and nuclear medicine capacity at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI).
Health Minister Dr Diana Atwine said the government has allocated Shs180 billion for a nuclear medicine and PET facility at UCI. According to her, the project is designed to include three PET machines, a cyclotron for producing radioisotopes and tracers, nuclear medicine treatment facilities and other specialised services.
Atwine said the first PET machine is expected to be installed this month and become fully functional before the end of the year.
She also said the wider project includes interventional radiology, endoscopy and colonoscopy facilities, expansion of inpatient and outpatient services, radiotherapy facilities and regional cancer centres in Arua, Mbale, Mbarara and Gulu.
The planned facility is not a new idea. Parliamentary budget documents have previously identified the establishment of a nuclear medicine/PET centre as a major investment requirement for UCI. A 2024 parliamentary report put the estimated requirement for the Nuclear Medicine Facility/PET Centre at Shs338 billion and noted that earlier funding for a cyclotron had not been implemented.
UCI’s PET-centre plans include a cyclotron and associated facilities for isotope production, PET/SPECT scanning and other specialised cancer services. A company involved in the project describes the planned centre as including PET-CT scanners, a cyclotron and a hot laboratory for handling radioactive materials.
Questions over implementation
The announcement has also prompted debate over whether Uganda’s investment in specialised equipment will translate into functioning services.
Dr Jacob Otile, responding to Atwine on X, questioned the government’s record on completing and operationalising major health projects. He cited concerns about intensive-care capacity at regional referral hospitals, access to diagnostic equipment outside Kampala and other delayed health infrastructure projects.
Atwine responded that the PET project had started well before the current debate and that establishing the infrastructure and equipment was a complex process.
“It started way long before,” she wrote. “Infrastructure of PET etc and Equipment is not like buying paracetamol in a pharmacy.”
The exchange points to a broader issue in specialised medicine: buying the machine is only one part of establishing a diagnostic service. PET facilities require radioactive tracers, reliable infrastructure, trained nuclear medicine specialists, technicians, maintenance systems, radiation-safety arrangements and a dependable supply chain.
UCI’s own development plans acknowledge the scale of the challenge. Uganda’s cancer institute has been expanding its infrastructure and regional services, while seeking to develop capacity for specialised diagnosis, treatment, research and training.
Kenya already has several facilities offering PET scanning, including Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, Nairobi West Hospital and Kenyatta University Teaching Hospital, according to Daily Monitor.
For Ugandan patients who cannot access such technology at home, the difference is not merely technological. It can mean travelling hundreds of kilometres across a border to obtain a diagnostic test that determines what treatment follows.
King Oyo’s case therefore leaves a difficult question for Uganda’s health system: when the first PET machines become operational, will they simply add another sophisticated machine to Kampala’s medical infrastructure, or will they become part of a functioning national cancer system capable of detecting and treating disease before patients have to seek answers elsewhere?
