TANZANIA-HEALTH-TUBERCULOSIS-RATS

A lab technician looks at an African giant pouched rat at APOPO's training facility in Morogoro on June 16, 2016. APOPO trains rats to detect both tuberculosis and landmines at its facility. Rats are given sputum samples, some of which contain tuberculosis traces and some which don't, the rats indicate that believe they have detected the disease by pausing for longer at a sample, the sample is then marked for further testing and confirmation. The rats are as effective as conventional lab screening of samples but can screen 100 samples in 20 minutes, a workload which would take a lab technician 4 days to complete. In November 2015, the World Health Organization named Tuberculosis as the world's top infectious disease killer, citing more annual deaths from TB than from HIV. 1 in 3 HIV deaths is related to TB. Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria and spreads from person to person through the air. Despite its reputation as a deadly and highly contagious disease, tuberculosis it is completely curable and preventable if detected. (Photo by CARL DE SOUZA / AFP) (Photo by CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)