The nomination "Our Brothers": Doctors sent the hero rat to a well-deserved retirement.
In total, the African giant marsupial rat Caroline spent seven years at her "combat" post, writes "Around the World". The tailed dog worked tirelessly from Monday to Friday, thus saving people's lives. The whole secret, as the experts of the APOPO organization say, is in Caroline's prominent nose.
Day after day, she was able to detect tuberculosis faster and more accurately than they did in the laboratory. Caroline is not an ordinary rat. She was trained by scientists from APOPO, after which she learned how to check 100 sputum samples for the presence of the causative agent of tuberculosis in 20 minutes. This is an unattainable speed for standard diagnostic methods. Her outstanding nose allowed Caroline to detect even minimal traces of the disease, which made her an indispensable fighter in the fight against tuberculosis in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Thus, in seven years of work, Caroline was able to save hundreds of lives and identify more than 3,000 cases of tuberculosis.
But the years have taken their toll, and now the former "employee" of the laboratory enjoys relaxing in a spacious, shady aviary. She is accompanied by another veteran, Gilbert the rat. Together they live in a real rat "boarding house" with care, games and attention from the staff.
"I jokingly call it our Florida. It's like a small retirement community. We even create new toys for the rats to keep them active," said Cindy Fast, head of APOPO's training department.
So now Caroline is not on duty, but still in the spotlight. And although she no longer hunts for diseases, her contribution to medicine will remain unforgettable.
Marsupial rats have not only excellent intelligence, but also unique abilities. The African giant marsupial rat can reach 90 cm in length (including tail) and weigh up to 1.5 kilograms. It is their incredibly acute sense of smell that is so highly valued. For example, African giant marsupial rats can smell literally half a drop of chlorine in a volume equal to 20 Olympic pools. These qualities of rats are used by the non-profit organization APOPO to search for and defuse unexploded mines in Cambodia, Thailand and other Asian and African countries.
Photography "Around the World".