Pediatric tuberculosis detection using trained African giant pouched rats

TB was responsible for 1.8 million deaths in 2015, of which children account for almost 10%. A large proportion of TB patients go undetected in high burden countries due to the poor sensitivity of the smear microscopy used to detect the disease. Paediatric cases are often harder to detect because children produce lower quality sputum samples needed for the smear microscopy. As a result, many children with TB go untreated, and the vast majority of children treated for TB are treated empirically. Georgies Mgode, a research fellow at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania, and his team have tested the use of trained Giant African Pouch rats as an enhanced case finding tool after smear microscopy.