TB detection has made significant advances in recent years, including using artificial intelligence tools in conjunction with lung scans. However, many areas that are burdened most by TB, such as rural villages or low-income urban communities, do not have access to these tools.

While the use of molecular detection devices, such as one called GeneXpert, have become more widespread, a clinic may only have one of these devices and it can take two hours to process a sample. Overburdened clinics turn to the centuries-old technique of microscopy, or investigation of sputum under a microscope, which is both fallible and time-consuming.

“Human error may result in a person being told they are disease-free when they are not,” said Stanesloaus. “Using rats is a very effective initiative.”

APOPO’s rats can scan 100 samples in 20 minutes, and since the program’s inception, the rats have been able to identify more than 30,000 patients who had been sent home with a clean bill of health but were actually carrying TB, said Cox. The NGO is able to do with one lab what 55 hospitals do in a day, he adds.

Yet using live animals in the place of medical devices poses challenges, especially when it comes to scale. Samples have to be brought directly to a lab with enough trained rats to conduct the detection, with some samples brought to Morogoro by motorbike each day. Operations are most effective in dense urban centers.