The country's biggest teleradiology service, Virtual Radiologic, said Tuesday it was partnering with Doctors Without Borders to help provide remote reads for operations in Eastern Europe and Africa.

Eden Prairie, Minn.-based vRad's network of 400 radiologists will help the medical charity respond to a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis outbreak in Nukus, Uzbekistan and help expand health care access to people in conflict-ridden Boguila, Central African Republic.

In both countries, Doctors Without Borders is installing new diagnostic imaging equipment and it needs assistance reading slides and managing the technology for sharing images.
According to 2007 World Health Organization figures, in Uzbekistan, nearly 15 percent of all newly diagnosed TB cases are drug-resistant. About one in five people afflicted with MDR-TB do not recover, and treatment can take upwards of two years, according to Doctors without Borders.

The Central African Republic, a landlocked country south of Chad, is one of the poorest nations in the world, and has been gripped by violence as competing rebel groups battle with the government and one another over the country's lucrative diamond mines.

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