Let’s face it, rats aren’t the most popular animal. From the Black Death to the Netflix documentary on New York’s rodent problem, they may be the least-liked mammal on Earth.
But down in Kenya and Tanzania, they are utilizing rats to cure disease rather than cause it, and to be a member of society, rather than an outcast.
The APOPO Project has already trained rats to smell landmines—one of the most tragic and long-lasting consequences of warfare, but now scientists are training them to sniff out tuberculosis, and they’re proving more sensitive than microscope testing.
African giant pouched rats, also known as Gambian pouched rats, were also able to detect the olfactory characteristics of TB independent of a person’s HIV status, something which disrupts existing TB testing.
“That is, they can easily identify tuberculosis in people living with HIV, keeping in mind that these people living with HIV, it is very difficult to be diagnosed by the standard test, including Genexpert in microscopes,” Joseph Soka, program manager for TB at APOPO, told Africa News.
Tuberculosis still unfortunately kills millions worldwide, and in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, the APOPO rats have now replaced normal testing in 21 different health clinics.
“So, the conventional laboratory techniques can take anywhere from two hours to even 14 days per sample, depending on what technique you use,” said Dhaval Shah, veterinary pathologist at Pathologists Lancet Kenya.
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“While the rats will be able to complete testing of fifty samples within two hours and this would be ideal in far places or remote places like Mozambique or places in Mozambique which are rural.”
The TB project is going better than the landmine clearance. Provided the ground is free of vegetation and lined with paths for the handlers to walk on safely, each rat is capable of searching up to 400 m2 (4,300 sq ft) per day as part of a team including conventional equipment.
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They ignore old screws, nails, coins, and other materials that can make manual mine clearance with metal detectors incredibly slow and tedious.
However it takes around $6,500 to train the rats, and APOPO is the only organization in the world that uses rats, perhaps pointing to the reality of their ability as minesweepers.
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