Cheap, Smart and Efficient: How Giant Rats Are Transforming the Fight Against TB

18 December 2024

A TB screening program, run by a charity called Apopo, is used in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Specially trained giant rats detect the disease in samples of the patients’ sputum, or mucus from the lungs and airways. Samples assessed as negative using smears or molecular tests in clinics are sent to Apopo’s laboratories for secondary screening by the rats.

Read the full story at The Guardian.

* Photo credit: Peter Muiruri; Fidelis John, a trainer with Apopo, with two-year-old Louis. ‘There are trust issues at first,’ he says.