BAIDOA, Somalia, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has flown to Ethiopia for medical reasons, a senior government official said on Friday, a month after suffering from a chest illness that sparked a health scare.

The official said Yusuf left Somalia on Thursday. The 73-year-old is a long-surviving liver transplant patient and has for years gone abroad for specialised treatment.

"The president was flown to Addis Ababa for medical reasons. He was well dressed and he got on the plane by himself. He was not very ill," said the official, who declined to be named.

"If his condition gets serious, he will be flown to Nairobi where his doctor is staying."

Ethiopian officials confirmed Yusuf's arrival.

The president flew to neighbouring Kenya last month where he received treatment for a chest illness. He dismissed reports he was close to death.

Aides had attributed the illness to the stress of politics in the Horn of Africa country, where a clan row has prevented Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein's attempts to form a cabinet.

Saying their clans had been snubbed, five ministers quit Hussein's cabinet in December, forcing him to return to the drawing board. The government official said a new cabinet was expected to be named at the weekend.

"I understand Yusuf approved the prime minister's government and Hussein is expected to announce the nomination of his government on Saturday."

Besides the political infighting, Yusuf's administration faces a persistent insurgency in Mogadishu, where government soldiers and their Ethiopian military allies are battling Islamist insurgents. (Reporting by Ahmed Mohamed in Baidoa and Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)

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