His name is Carolina and retired last November. In his seven years of career, he had detected more than 3000 cases of tuberculosis that the health centers had overlooked. Thanks to this, he had probably avoided infection to more than 30,000 people. This is the increasing history the huge rats that save lives.
The species is an African giant rat. You can analyze 100 sputum samples (phlegm) to detect tuberculosis in 20 minutes. It is part of a group of 40 rats from the Apopo organization that fights tuberculosis in Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Huge impact
These rats are calm and easier to train than some dogs. Its sense of smell would detect half drop of chlorine in a space of the size of 20 Olympic pools. The huge rats that save lives have a monumental impact. For each tuberculosis infection detected by a rat, it is estimated that they are saved from an infection between 10 and 15 more human beings. “We are not only saving people’s lives. We change the perspective for something as humble as a rat,” they say: “We see them as heroes.”
Herorats, as the Apopo program is also known, began as a land mines detection project in the 1990s. The smell of the rats is so sharp that it can detect the smell of TNT at 20 centimeters underground. Rats are so light that they do not activate any explosive.
More than 50,000 people died of tuberculosis only in Tanzania and Ethiopia in 2023. The disease is stigmatized, which deter people from seeking treatment. It is often related to HIV.
Strict training
Rats spend a year of training with click. It is a positive form of reinforcement. It teaches them to associate the accurate detection of tuberculosis with a food reward. Once the rats learn to associate the chemical smells of tuberculosis with an award, they strive to find a positive result.
At the end of the training period, rats must overcome a challenge. They evaluate 500 samples and should not overlook a single positive patient. Once that goal is achieved, tuberculosis detector rats are officially.
Next, they work between eight and ten minutes, five days a week. They do it in a glass evaluation chamber with ten holes. They walk smelling sputum samples under the holes, up to a total of 100 samples a day.
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