Super-Sniffer APOPO Rats Smell Out Landmines And Tuberculosis

By R. Siva Kumar - 10 Oct '15 13:03PM

All the world is becoming a bomb field. The process of burying explosive material inside the ground, leading to pressure and death, or disabilities due to injuries, has raised fears in an explosive world.

Horrifyingly, one-third of the world, in 59 countries, there are landmines, which have killed 1,066 and injured 2,552 according to a study published in 2012, reports Gizmodo.

An interesting way of dealing with the worrying problem has been discovered by APOPO, a Belgian non-profit organisation. They have trained some awesome African Giant Pouched Rat, which lives for eight years, keeps calm and can be trained regularly by APOPO Being light, they can run over the mines on various fields without setting them off, even as they are able to adapt to whatever tough conditions they are in.

APOPO's motto is thus awesome: "We train rats to save lives."

This particular body has enabled the clearance of 13,200 mines from Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, and recently Cambodia, points out National Geographic.

One one-eyed, intrepid rat called Pit managed to smell out a bomb in just under 11 minutes, says Reuters.

"Under a clear sky, [Pit] would have been quicker. These are life-saving rats," said Hul Sokheng, a Cambodian who has employed these rats to clear Cambodia of these explosive mines.

Bart Weetjens, a student who wanted to solve the global landmine problem began the APOPO organisation in 1995. Recently, it was drawn into the United Nations Solutions Summit.

Check out Weetjens' speech on the organisation at a TED summit.

Another amazing feature of the APOPO rats is their ability to identify tuberculosis ailments in humans. Hence, they have so far managed to sniff out 8,700 cases of TB and halted more than 35,000 potential TB infections.

Watch the rats in action.