Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will travel to Switzerland on Sunday for “routine medical checks,” his office said in a statement without elaborating.
The 81-year-old will have a "short" stay in Geneva, it said in a statement carried by the government APS news agency.
Bouteflika has announced that he will run for a fifth term in office in the presidential election set for April 18. Observers expect him to win despite serious questions over his fitness for office after a 2013 stroke that left him largely infirm.
Bouteflika has been seen in public only a few times a year during his entire fourth term. He last appeared in public on November 1 and no longer delivers public speeches.
He did however appear on television on Thursday, alongside other senior officials attending the swearing-in of the new president of the Constitutional Council Tayeb Belaiz.
Bouteflika regularly visits hospitals overseas, most recently spending five days in Switzerland in August for unspecified tests.
