QuickCheck: Can rats detect tuberculosis by smell?
Can rats be used to detect tuberculosis (TB)?
Verdict:
YES
A Belgian nonprofit called Apopo, originally known for training rats to sniff out landmines, has been training African giant pouched rats to detect TB – a disease that remains prevalent in many regions of Africa – since 2008.
In medical centres across Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, these rodents are already at work. With their extraordinary sense of smell, they can detect the scent of TB bacteria in human sputum samples, often catching infections that standard lab tests miss.
It takes about nine months to train a rat, but the results are fruitful. In just their first 16 months of work in Mozambique, the rats helped uncover 764 additional TB cases, representing a 44% increase in detection compared to conventional clinic methods.
Of course, there are limitations. These furry diagnosticians cannot determine whether an infection is drug-resistant, and their results still require confirmation through laboratory tests. Nevertheless, many researchers and healthcare professionals see great potential.
In the future, the rats might even be stationed in regional labs and hospitals. However, further studies are needed to gauge the public's perception of this unconventional approach to saving lives.
References:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/giant-rats-trained-sniff-out-tuberculosis-africa/
https://apopo.org/what-we-do/detecting-tuberculosis/where-we-work/apopo-in-tanzania/
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