MinXray Reaches New Depths in South Africa

Written by Katie Robertson - Public Relations Account Executive

On March 26, 2026, the MinXray team traveled to Gauteng Province, South Africa to the Mponeng Mine, which is operated by Harmony Gold. Mponeng is the world’s deepest mine from surface level, but even descending 3,740 meters (about 2.3 miles) underground could not stop the capabilities of the Impact Wireless Portable X-ray System.

While down in the mine, MinXray’s Mike Cairnie captured several diagnostic images with the Impact system. The images captured were used to screen miners employed by Harmony Gold for a number of lung conditions, including tuberculosis (TB). Due to the nature of the job, miners are particularly susceptible to TB, a curable airborne infectious disease that mainly impacts the lungs, and silicosis, a serious, irreversible occupational lung disease caused by inhaling crystalline silica dust over time. Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging is one of the most effective and impactful tools for lung health screening.

This trip was coordinated by Stop TB Partnership, a United Nations hosted Partnership bringing together expertise from a broad spectrum of country, regional and global partners in a shared mission to revolutionize the TB space and end TB by 2030. MinXray and Stop TB previously worked together in 2024 to capture diagnostic images on the summit of Kala Patthar on Mount Everest at an elevation of 18,517 feet. This expedition topped a Guinness World Record set by Cairnie in 2022 for the X-ray system operated at an altitude of 17,598 feet at the Mount Everest Base Camp in Khumjung, Nepal.

The event in South Africa and attempt to secure an additional world record took place as part of a series of activities unfolding in the country to mark World TB Day, an observation meant to raise awareness of the world’s deadliest infectious disease and efforts made to eradicate it. In addition to MinXray and Stop TB Partnership, other partners involved in the project included The Department of Health of South Africa (TB Cluster), Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases, Minerals Council South Africa and Nexus Intelligence, the developer of artificial intelligence (AI) software (Nexus AI) that read the images on site. Together, these partners aim to bring attention to the fact that the innovation and technology to reach everyone, everywhere with proper diagnosis and treatment for TB already exists. What is sometimes missing is the will to deploy them.

Every year in South Africa, roughly 249,000 people fall ill with TB, and one quarter of them do not get diagnosed and treated. TB surveys in South Africa show that screening people for TB-related symptoms through verbal reporting alone will find just over 40 percent of people with TB. To diagnose the other 60 percent of people with TB, a CXR, which can detect TB-related lesions before symptoms develop, is needed. 

Early detection is key to ensuring the best possible treatment outcomes and preventing the spread from impacting additional members of the community. The mining sector in South Africa has made substantive investments in TB prevention and elimination, which has resulted in significant declines in TB incidence.

In addition to raising awareness of TB and advocating for access to early diagnosis and care for all, the expedition into Mponeng demonstrates the Impact System’s robust capabilities in extreme conditions. The system functions without electricity, capturing more than 200 CXRs before needing to recharge. They produce high-quality images, which are now being paired with Nexus AI that can rapidly interpret CXRs to identify people who need a diagnostic test for TB as accurately as expert radiologists. 

“Portable X-ray systems can bring a critical diagnostic resource to communities where other options may not be a possibility. Capturing usable diagnostic images over two miles underground helps us to prove that nowhere on Earth is too remote for reaching people in need of care,” said Michael Cairnie, Director of Global Sales at MinXray.

MinXray’s Impact Wireless System is designed with a number of features that make it particularly well suited to TB relief efforts. It is ultra-portable, with the entire system small enough to fit inside a backpack, and it’s battery-powered for use anywhere, regardless of available power. The system is complete, meaning all components needed to capture and interpret images are available together, and it is built for ease of use with a quick setup and intuitive user interface.