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+--- Thread: rat detects TB (/showthread.php?tid=295078)
rat detects TB - Fritz - 03-18-2025
Carolina the giant rat hero after saving many lives
archived link to Nat Geo article.
Re: rat detects TB - hal - 03-18-2025
Until recently, Carolina worked Monday through Friday, with weekends off.
At her retirement this past November, colleagues lined up to applaud her and celebrate over cake. In her seven-year career, she had detected more than 3,000 cases of tuberculosis that health clinics had missed and, as a result, likely spared more than 30,000 other people from infection.
But she's not exactly your typical employee. Carolina is an African giant pouched rat who can screen 100 sputum (i.e phlegm) samples for tuberculosis in 20 minutes—much faster than a human, who takes four days to process the same amount of information with a microscope. And she’s part of a cohort of 40 rats belonging to nonprofit APOPO who are helping to combat the tuberculosis epidemic in Tanzania and Ethiopia.
that's crazy!
Re: rat detects TB - SteveG - 03-18-2025
which is why you hardly ever see rats coughing up blood on the NYC subway.
Re: rat detects TB - mspace - 03-18-2025
Steve G. wrote:
which is why you hardly ever see rats coughing up blood on the NYC subway.
:boink:
Re: rat detects TB - ka jowct - 03-18-2025
APOPO also trains these giant rats to detect mines. They have a fairly long lifespan (for a rat) and are very smart.