Heroes in Action

HeroRats: Landmine and Tuberculosis Detectors

Published by EconomistMagazine, March 31, 2010

Meet the Hero Rats who love to play hide and seek amongst landmines and unexploded bombs, and treasure hunt for positive TB samples. APOPO, a Belgian charity is harnessing the sociability, enthusiasm for repetitive tasks, love of bananas and acute sense of smell of the African Giant Pouched rat to uncover killers. Working in Mozambique and Tanzania APOPO has already cleared large areas of unexploded ordinance and detected TB in hundreds of samples missed by more costly conventional testing.

TEDx: Bart Weetjens talk on APOPO

Published by TEDx Rotterdam 2010, June 20, 2010

Bart Weetjens, APOPO Founder speaks to TEDx Rotterdam about APOPO, the idea, where APOPO has come from and where it is going

Bart Weetjens - TEDxRotterdam 2010 from TEDxRotterdam on Vimeo.

Bomb Squad Rats – Africa

Published by Journeymanpictures, January 11, 2010

After decades of civil war, and years of work clearing up after it, Mozambique is slowly moving towards being declared free of landmines. All thanks to man’s unlikely new best friend: the rat.

DW-TV – HeroRATs

Published by Duetche Welle TV, September 22, 2009

DW-TV film of APOPO's HeroRATs at work demining and detecting tuberculosis.

Mozambique's de-mining rats

Published by AlJazeeraEnglish, August 21, 2009

Landmines left behind after conflict are a deadly legacy, causing thousands of casualties every year. In Mozambique, disposal teams risk their lives to find the tens of thousands of landmines still buried in the bush.

Bart Weetjens (APOPO / HeroRats) – 2009 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

Published by the Skoll Foundation, May 1, 2009

Bart Weetjens' acceptance speech at the 2009 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship.

Using Sniffer Rats to Detect Tuberculosis

Published by APOPO, June 20, 2008

APOPO trains sniffer rats to detect explosives and diagnose disease. This unusual idea has been developed into a competitive technology by a group of Belgian and Tanzanian researchers and animal trainers. This video demonstrates the use of sniffer rats to detect tuberculosis in human sputum samples. This method is far more cost-effective and efficient than other methods, including using lab technicians.