APOPO

APOPO trains African Giant Pouched Rats to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and to detect land mines through their heightened sense of smell. Affectionately called HeroRats, these rats are trained to use their incredible sense of smell to detect both land mines and the early signs of Tuberculosis. APOPO works to address the need for cheap, reliable, and locally manageable mine detection services and tuberculosis screening.

 

 

APOPO Programs

APOPO was initiated in response to the global land mine problem. HeroRats are cheaper to breed, feed, train, maintain, and transport than paying for other technologies for land mind detection.  They are light-weight and therefore are not at risk to set off land mines by stepping on them. The use of HeroRats speeds up humane land mine clearance and reduces operational costs, which can be very expensive in Africa.

 

As a spin-off application, APOPO started to train HeroRats to detect pulmonary Tuberculosis.

 

Why the need?

Every day about 40 to 50 people are killed or maimed by land mines and every year 40,000 new land mines are being planted in conflict areas. In Africa, land mines kill, injure, and disable over 12,000 people per year.  21 African countries are affected by land mines.

Nearly 2 million people die worldwide every year from tuberculosis (TB).  TB kills more youth and adults than any other single infectious disease in the world today.  The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts a 400% increase of TB by 2015. 

How Team Efforts Translate to Impact

$1 pays for TB screening for one patient.

$7 will give one APOPO HeroRat training in landmine detection for one month. 

$10,000 will pay for the cost of HeroRats to clear a soccer field size patch of land to give back to the community to use for family farms, safe places for children to play, or allow safe passage for livestock.

  

 

 

How APOPO Creates Sustainable Global Change

APOPO employs local community members to train and work with rats in the minefields and test for Tuberculosis. Both deactivating mines and diagnosing diseases invests resources back into the local economy.

 

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*Photos courtesy of APOPO