Page 91 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

which is rich in vitamin A. This, it pointed out to the authorities, was a reminder from
an unusual angle that ‘South Africa is a culturally diverse society for which targeted
rather than blanket interventions are required’. 132
Other pre-1995 research units had their greatest effect through innovative medical
equipment which they invented or perfected. Of these, the Umbiflow portable
ultrasound device developed by the Perinatal Mortality Research Unit at Stellenbosch
University to assess the viability of a foetus by measuring blood flow in the umbilical
cord was pre-eminent, for it provided a cheap and easy-to-use means to identify
mothers at risk of having a stillbirth, thereby allowing early intervention to prevent
this. An obstetrician involved in trials of the device called it ‘a game-changer’, a
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description which was borne out in field trials, which showed a 40 per cent reduction
in stillbirths when Umbiflow devices were routinely used in antenatal care. In the
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way it drew together the financial, statistical and entrepreneurial resources from the

Signs of the times? Neurosurgeon Dr Alan Taylor tests out the Stereophotogrammetric Image-
Guide Neurological System (SIGNS) pointer designed by the MRC Imaging Unit, on a
phantom model in an operating theatre at Groote Schuur Hospital, 2004. Watching him are
an MSc student, Ms Megan Watson (left), and her supervisor, Dr Ernesta Meintjes (right).

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