Rats the Size of Dogs Could Save Your Life

Researchers in Tanzania have all the right intentions -- breeding giant rats to sniff out whether a person has tuberculosis and hopefully treat the person before the disease kills him. However, if most people come upon a rat this size, many of them will fake an injury so they could file a lawsuit immediately go into cardiac arrest and die. But we digress.

While the World Health Organization estimates that 2 billion people around the world are infected with TB, it can be hard to detect under a microscope, particularly in those who are also HIV positive. That’s where the giant rats can help. They might turn out to be just as accurate at finding TB. They're low-tech and could screen for TB in resource-limited countries. They’re also faster than the standard microscope test, says Bart Weetjens, APOPO founder. A human with a microscope can process 40 samples a day. A rat can do 40 in seven minutes, he says. Weetjens, who was inspired by a childhood pet rat, started APOPO in the 1990s to train giant pouched rats, which are native to sub-Saharan Africa, to detect land mines in the region. The rats were so good at sniffing out hidden bombs that in 2003, APOPO started training their nosy little friends to smell TB in a spit sample. Currently working with a team of 30 rats, APOPO is now optimizing their unique program, so in the future, it might be used in other communities.

Bart adds that rats' reputation as disease-carrying vermin is exaggerated and no one at the testing facility has gotten ill during the 12 years they've been working with the animals, whom he refers to as "really lovable creatures."


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