Kangaroos can detect mines, tuberculosis and find trapped people.

Giant African pouched rats have been trained for more than two decades for rescue missions such as detecting mines, tuberculosis or people trapped under rubble.

A kangaroo trained to detect tuberculosis by APOPO in Ethiopia - Photo: APOPO

APOPO, a Belgian non-profit organization, has been training African pouched rats for rescue missions for the past 25 years.

With their extremely sensitive noses, these rats can detect landmines and tuberculosis - even in small amounts of bacteria.

More recently, they have also been trained to detect illegally trafficked wildlife and to accurately search for people trapped under rubble in disasters such as earthquakes.

Training rats to detect mines and find people

According to ABC News on September 4, APOPO experts are testing a search for people trapped after a simulated earthquake in Morogoro city in the Uluguru mountains, Tanzania.

A kangaroo wriggled under layers of dirt and rocks, searching for and sounding a whistle on the trapped person's bag to signal. The kangaroo then returned to its trainer to receive a banana as a reward.

APOPO also cooperated with Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania) to train kangaroos to detect mines. During training, when they stop at a certain place, it means there are mines there.

These kangaroos are preparing for their next deployment, possibly to Angola or Cambodia – where APOPO has helped clear more than 50,000 landmines since 2014.

A team of "special kangaroos" is also in Türkiye with a partner search and rescue organization of APOPO.

Tuberculosis detection

A normal morning of a mine-detecting kangaroo - Source: APOPO/YOUTUBE

There is also a group of lab-trained kangaroos tasked with detecting tuberculosis. APOPO believes the kangaroos are one of the world's most effective TB detection "devices" and has deployed them in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Kangaroos help doctors detect cases of tuberculosis that might otherwise go unnoticed, helping to prevent people from unwittingly spreading the dangerous disease. They can smell 100 samples in 20 minutes. They have identified more than 30,000 patients who were discharged from hospital but were actually still carrying the bacteria.

With just one lab, APOPO can use kangaroos to do the amount of work (identifying TB patients) of 55 hospitals in one day.

However, using living organisms as medical devices also poses many challenges, especially in terms of scale. Samples must be brought directly to the lab with enough trained mice to detect TB.

Additionally, using kangaroos to detect disease has also been met with skepticism from regulators and the medical community.

Giant African pouched rat

The African giant pouched rat (Cricetomys ansorgei) has a head-body length of 25 - 30 cm and a tail length of 30 - 35 cm, weighing about 1 - 1.3 kg.

Kangaroos begin training for special missions soon after they are born. With an average lifespan of around 10 years, they can perform rescue missions for many years. The cost of training a rat is around $6,990.

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ANH THU

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/loai-chuot-tui-biet-do-min-phat-hien-benh-lao-va-tim-nguoi-bi-mac-ket-20250905154357041.htm