SCIENTISTS from Oxford University have hailed a helium discovery which could solve a shortage of the gas threatening life-saving work in medicine.

The team, working with staff at Durham University, have made a major find in Tanzania which could make it easier to locate the gas in the future.

Reserves have been running out over the last few years, with doctors across the world even calling for a ban on its usage in party balloons.

Until now helium - used in MRI scanners, nuclear power and leak detection - has been found accidentally during drilling for oil and gas.

But the team of scientists, working with Norwegian firm Helium One, have found volcanic activity can provide the intense heat necessary to release the gas from ancient, helium-bearing rocks.

Within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley, volcanoes have released helium from deep rocks and trapped it in shallower gas fields.

Professor Chris Ballentine, from Oxford University's department of earth sciences, said: "This is a game changer for the future security of society's helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away."

He predicted that there was probably 54 billion cubic feet (BCf) in just one part of the Rift Valley - enough to fill over 1.2 million medical MRI scanners.