How are the "Avon lady" approach and giant rats helping to combat Tuberculosis?

The following blog post was written by guest blogger Claire Seigworth. Claire graduated with a B.A. in International Relations and a minor in Spanish Literature from Marquette University. She has traveled to many Latin American countries, studied in Santiago, Chile and worked in Panama for Global Brigades.

Tuberculosis is one of the most challenging diseases that international and national health organizations face in the 21^st century. Tuberculosis is an airborne disease, so crowded, inadequate living quarters and poor health care and knowledge make tuberculosis a common disease among the poor. In addition to the stigma from poverty, tuberculosis further isolates vulnerable people.[1]

Despite being grouped with other infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, tuberculosis is preventable and treatable. Proper ventilation and treatment of the infection is curative, but the lack of education and medication and poor medical infrastructure lead to tuberculosis not being treated or developing drug resistant tuberculosis.[2]

Children often face the most challenges when combating tuberculosis. 500,000 children are exposed to tuberculosis each year and about 700,000 children die from this disease each year.[3] There are many reasons why this occurs. Tuberculosis is more difficult to test in children since they have less of the bacteria in their lungs and the mucus cough test is more difficult to administer to children.[4] Furthermore, the medication is not designed for children, so making sure they receive the proper dosage is a challenge.[5] Improper dosage also is a critical problem because if tuberculosis is improperly treated, it can lead to drug resistant tuberculosis as it does not kill all of the bacteria.[6]

Improper tuberculosis medication is another reason why tuberculosis outbreaks occur. When countries do not follow international standards or when pharmacies sell tuberculosis medication without the active ingredients, outbreaks spread and often lead to drug resistant strains of the disease.[7]

However, many organizations are working to find creative solutions to the problem. In Uganda, health workers adapted the “Avon lady” model to prevent the sale of counterfeit drugs.[8] In Tanzania, scientists successfully trained African giant pouched rats to recognize tuberculosis infections by smelling samples of mucous.[9] The global community is responding to the problem and hopefully this deadly disease will be eradicated by this century.