Results: Giant rats sniff out danger

Rats traditionally get a bad rap. We tend to think of them as disease-spreading vermin and like to give them a wide berth. But a crack team of skilled rats has already saved thousands of human lives in Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia is next on the list. Are you familiar with this story?

Belgian organization APOPO is training giant African pouched rats to detect two of Africa's cruelest menaces. The first is landmines. When civilians have to risk their lives just to fetch water or farm their land, they're locked into poverty and development is impossible. Wanting to find a local, affordable solution, APOPO founder Bart Weetjens remembered the pet rodents he'd kept as a boy in Belgium. He knew rats were intelligent, sociable, and teachable. They were also in plentiful supply and relatively cheap to train. APOPO's heroic rats are also on the front line against Africa's desperate TB crisis, where clinics are overwhelmed and diagnostic TB tests often inaccurate. Globally, around 1.5 million people die from TB every year, and every untreated patient can infect up to a dozen other people. What African pouched rat training facts are you familiar with?

They've also screened almost 312,000 TB samples and detected over 8,000 cases that the public clinics missed. While it takes a lab technician all day to evaluate 20 samples, a rat can get it done in just ten minutes. Weetjens adds, "It's so beautiful to see our rat trainers and their HeroRATs working jointly for a better world." Is this the first time you are reading about the Belgian organization APOPO (in reference: training the giant African pouched rats for detecting landmines and also the TB crisis)?

Have you ever heard of African pouched rats being trained in this particular manner?