For some people, they are the stuff of nightmares but these rats should hold no fear. They don’t carry disease, instead they diagnose it and it works because of their extraordinary sense of smell.
The rats are trained to recognise tuberculosis in human saliva samples, when they find it, they’re given a food reward. It’s many times quicker than a doctor looking through a microscope.
“You can present 100 samples to the rat and in between 10 and 20 minutes, he has finished evaluating those samples. A lab technician would take 4 to 5 days to do that. In a fraction of a second, the rat can tell you if this sample is positive or if this sample is negative.” Said Fidelis Ghally, Training Coordinator
The rats often pick up cases which have been missed by conventional tests. Rats may not be the most popular animals but people in Tanzania believe they are a cheap and effective solution to a deadly problem.
TB kills 30,000 people a year in Tanzania and yet many still go without treatment, because they haven’t been diagnosed. The new centre in Dar es Salaam means patients should receive their results within 24 hours and can start medication straight away.
The researchers believe this could save lives around the developing world – where one and a half million people die of TB every year.
“People are used to seeing disease diagnosed by conventional tools, but to accept something new takes time. But we can see that awareness is increasing and we hope our results can speak by themselves, and finally the technology can be expanded globally.” Said Dr Georgies Mgode, Programme Manager
Tanzania’s rats were already famous for detecting landmines in former warzones. They might not know it but these tiny nostrils could just be the new technology needed.
