Tanzanian president commends college for research on rats' TB detection

DAR ES SALAAM, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Monday commended the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Morogoro region for pioneering its landmark research that enables rats to detect tuberculosis (TB) in children.

The research led by Georgies Mgode is much more successful at detecting TB in children than a commonly used basic microscopy test.

Speaking on his short visit to the university, President Magufuli said: "I commend you for this landmark research that aims at detecting TB in children by using rats."

The head of state pledged to continue supporting SUA, located 200 kilometers west of the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, to enable it to engage in more research that was beneficial to mankind.

The study, published by the London-based Springer Nature in Pediatric Research this year, shows that when trained rats were given children's sputum samples to sniff, the animals were able to pinpoint 68 percent cases of TB infections than detected through a standard smear test.

According to Mgode who pioneered the research, current TB detection methods are far from perfect, especially in under-resourced countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia where the disease is prevalent, and where a reasonably cheap smear test is commonly used.

"Problems with this type of test are that the accuracy varies depending on the quality of sputum sample used, and very young children are often unable to provide enough sputum to be analyzed," said Mgode.

Springer Nature in Pediatric Research said in its publication that previous work pioneered in Tanzania and Mozambique focused on training African giant pouched rats to pick up the scent of molecules released by the TB-causing Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium in sputum.

The training technique is similar to one used to teach rats to detect vapors released by landmine explosives, said the publication, adding:

"In the case of TB, when a rat highlights a possibly infected sample, it is analyzed further using a WHO endorsed concentrated microscopy techniques to confirm a positive diagnosis."

According to the Ministry of Health, Tanzania is the 15th among 22 countries with a huge number of TB patients.

The statistics indicate that the number of TB patients in the country increased rapidly from 11,000 people in 1984 to 62,000 in 2006.

The statistics show that the regions with the highest number of TB cases is Dar es Salaam with 22.9 percent equivalent to 13,983 people, Mwanza 9.3 percent equivalent to 5,946 people and Shinyanga 6.4 percent equivalent to 4,074 people. Enditem