Welcome to the latest edition of our NGO of the Month feature. We’re showcasing the very best NGOs from around the world to inspire and encourage you to create a better world.
This week we are joined by Ragna Frans, Communications Assistant at APOPO, a Tanzania based NGO that trains rats to save lives. This remarkable organization has pioneered the use of “scent detection technology” to create a cost effective method of detecting landmines and Tuberculosis in Africa.
What inspired the establishment of APOPO?
Bart Weetjens, founder of APOPO, kept pet rats as a child and got to know the little animals as intelligent, trainable and with a very accurate sense of smell. Years later, while analysing the landmine problem in Sub Saharan Africa,it struck him how expensive and dangerous the process of landmine clearance is. When he came across an article about gerbils detecting explosives in airports, he remembered his own pet rats, put two and two together and got the idea to start training rats as a cheaper, more efficient and readily available means to detect landmines in war-torn countries.He consulted with Professor Ron Verhagen, a rodent expert at the University of Antwerp, who recommended the Giant African Pouched rat (Cricetomysgambianus) because of its long lifespan and adaptation to the harsh conditions in Africa. APOPO first focused on the training of Mine Detection Rats (MDR) but later on the rodents were also trained to sniff out tuberculosis (TB) in human sputum samples.
What is special about APOPO?
While using animals for explosives detection (e.g. mine detection dogs) is not new for mine action, APOPO has pioneered the use of Giant Pouched Rats for landmine detection and is globally the only organization deploying detection rats technology for both landmine clearance and tuberculosis detection. We still get a lot of surprised reactions when we tell we’ve trained Giant African Pouched rats (yes, rats!) to become savers of human lives but APOPO’s HeroRATs have proven themselves in the field as efficient, effective and low-cost assets for both detecting landmines and tuberculosis as part of an integrated approach. They are for example much faster than traditional approaches used for detecting landmines like manual deminers with metal detector and APOPO’s second line TB screening,with the help of the TB detection rats, has resulted in an increased TB detection rate of over 40% in areas where we work.Our detection rats technology shows that simple innovations can generate a massive impact.
How does your NGO change lives?
APOPO enables individuals and communities to carry out their livelihoods by reducing barriers to productivity and creating conditions for development.
Landmines remain long after wars have ended, killing and maiming innocent civilians. As long as there is landmine suspicion, displaced people cannot return to their villages, infrastructure cannot be rebuilt and post-conflict areas cannot develop. APOPO applies an integrated approach, deploying manual deminers, Mine Detection Rats (MDRs) and machines, in order to make areas safe for human habitation and economic development. In Mozambique only, more than 8,8 million square meter of land was released and returned to the local population, enabling them to work and play without fear on land previously contaminated with landmines.
TB remains a scourge to development. Especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where TB continues thriving because of high HIV/AIDS co-infection rates, there is an enhanced need for early detection and treatment. APOPO addresses the need for fast, reliable and cost-efficient TB detection technology in high burden TB countries. The TB detection rats can evaluate 100 sputum samples within 20 minutes, a task which would take a lab technician more than two days using conventional microscopy. To date, more than 6,114 Tuberculosis patients who were initially missed by means of microscopy, were diagnosed in Tanzania and Mozambique. When you consider that every person with active TB can infect 10 to 15 others each year, APOPO has prevented more than 61,000 infections. By engaging scent detection technology to identify TB in human sputum samples, APOPO saves lives and enables people to stay productive and support their households, a highly important factor given the poverty levels in high burden TB countries.
Why is APOPO important to the community you work in?
Almost all of APOPO’s operations are in limited resource settings in countries which otherwise remain dependent on expensive imported know-how and equipment to tackle difficult, expensive and often dangerous detection tasks. By utilizing a local and sustainable resource, trained rats, APOPO empowers these communities to tackle the detection tasks more independently and at lower costs. As a result, explosive remnants of war are destroyed, formerly suspected land is returned to populations, Tuberculosis (TB) patients are detected early, TB infections are prevented and long term employment-based local expertise is created. Through targeted recruitment policies (95% of our staff is hired from the communities in operational areas)APOPO enables effective capacity building, economic development and gender equality in the communities we work in.
What is your NGO’s vision for the world?
APOPO envisions a world where the global fight against both landmines and TB has been won. A mine free world, where all areas contaminated with antipersonnel mines are cleared and given back to the local communities so they can live, work and play safely. A world where cheap and effective TB detection technologies are available so everybody can get a timely treatment and the disease can be eradicated. Meanwhile, APOPO will continue optimizing its scent detection training and operations, enhancing the state of the field and especially exploring novel applications of our scent technology with the goal of improving more lives and engendering social change.
Do you want to be our next NGO of the Month? Email robin@fundsforngos.org for more information.
