New MRI to debut in African nation of Malawi; will save lives, advance malari...(ies of Mozambique and Zambia neither of ...),Health

Taylor, a University Distinguished Professor of internal medicine and an osteopathic physician, spends the rainy season January through June working at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, treating malaria patients and conducting research on a disease that kills as many as 2 million children in sub-Saharan Africa every year.

So far, one of the most significant findings from Taylor's study is that about one-quarter of the children who were thought to have cerebral malaria turned out, on autopsy, to have died of infections, diseases or conditions that were completely unrelated to malaria.

"This calls into question a lot of the work that's been done on severe malaria to date," she said. "The studies might have included patients who were not suffering from malaria at all, because the researchers were using case definitions that lacked precision."

Taylor's autopsy study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is also providing funding for the MRI project, including funds to cover some of the operating costs as well as the high-speed Internet connection.

It was through the efforts of James Potchen, an MSU University Distinguished Professor of radiology and chairperson of the department, that General Electric donated the MRI unit to the hospital. The department also supported the costs of training Kampondeni to interpret magnetic resonance images.

Combined with transportation costs and the various hardware, software and other MRI necessities, the total value of the donation was more than $1.3 million.

The largest part of the MRI machine a compact car-sized magnet weighing in at 20 tons arrived in Blantyre in April after what could have been a harrowing journey.

The machine was assembled in China and, beginning March 15, transported to the South African port of Durban by sea. After its arrival on the continent,
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