In Mozambique, Africa, Rats sniff out both Landmines and Tuberculosis.
Landmines, leftovers of the horrible wars that the world has seen kill or maim one person every hour across the world.
Tuberculosis is responsible for about 5,000 deaths a day.
Rats can help us fight both these problems. Not the everyday rat that you and I spend a small fortune in driving away every year – but this is a special rat.
It is the African Giant Pouched Rat or 'Cricetomys gambianus'.
The African Giant Pouched rat weighs between 0.7 and 1.5 kg and their average body length is 30-40 centimeters, excluding the tail size of 40 centimeters.
The African Giant Pouched Rat
Landmines
The highest vapour concentration and the lowest wind speed are found close to the ground which is why the rats would beat other animals like cats and dogs to it. Their lightweight makes it highly unlikely they would set of a mine by scratching or pointing.
On the field, the free running rats scan a 100m2 box in about 28 minutes, which means ten of these rats can clear an area of one square kilometer of landmine affected area in a day. The world needs more of these rats.
Prior to becoming operational, the rats are calibrated to the local mine types expected and have to pass an external accreditation test under International Mine Action Standards (IMAS), supervised by the National Mine Action Centres.
Tuberculosis
Case detection in developing countries mainly depends on smear microscopy, a slow and unreliable technology that has not changed over the last 100 years.
They are fast, reliable and cheap. A rat can evaluate 40 samples in 10 minutes, equal to what a skilled lab technician, using microscopy, will do in two days. Without requiring sophisticated instruments, this method is non invasive and can handle a high volume of samples, all very important factors in a pro-active screening approach. And the rats work with high accuracy and sensitivity.
"What Pavlov did with his dogs is exactly what we're doing here — very basic conditioning," said Mr. Weetjens, a lanky, 42-year-old Belgian who works for an Antwerp mine-removal group named Apopo (www.apopo.org) . "TNT means food. TNT means clicking sound, means food. That's how we communicate with them."
Can someone think of doing something similar here at least for TB in India and in other countries for both landmines and TB? This is certainly more interesting than selling biscuits, lights or a job that Corporate India or for that matter the Government or civil society has normally on offer.
Check out photographs here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42612410@N05/
Check out a video here
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/tanzania605/video_index.html
Rats!!!
Where did you get these RATS..
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