SOKOINE University of Agriculture (SUA) is mulling over plans of using its giant trained rats in smelling and detecting virus that causes Covid-19.
The Public University is currently at exploratory stage, as experts and researchers scratch their heads in exposing the rodents to the killer virus.
“We, however, need to mobilise enough resources and do more research in ensuring that this biological undertaking becomes a reality,” observed Professor Rhodes Makundi, who also heads SUA’s Pest Management Centre.
The don who was fielding questions from reporters on the sideline of the 14th Technical and Advisory Meeting for leaders of Africa Centers of Excellence, oozed confidence on the effectiveness of the African Giant Pouched Rats in detecting infectious diseases.
“It took SUA some four years to test the rats’ abilities in sniffing out landmines and another five years to detect a disease like Tuberculosis, I’m confident the rats can come in handy in detecting Covid-19 causing virus,” Professor Makundi explained.
The expert in pest ecology and pest management technologies further hinted that it could take the Morogoro based institution another five years for the envisioned plan to come to fruition.
He, however, insisted on pulling enough resources, saying the public university had enough experts who devout much of their time training the rats at a 10 acre field in Morogoro.
Besides sniffing land mines, the SUA giant rats also get deployed in detecting TB and endangered species who get smuggled out of the country.
According to Prof Makundi, African Giant Pouched Rats have lately been in high demand, as far as South America.
He further revealed that some of rats were due to be taken to Azerbaijan next year to sniff out landmines.
“Rats are very fast and very effective, in just six minutes, a rat can evaluate more samples in ten minutes than a lab technician can evaluate in a day,” he added.
Speaking earlier on, Education, Science and Technology Permanent Secretary Francis Michael commended the World Bank for establishing and supporting the endeavors of Centers of Excellence in the region.
Yesterday’s event, brought together leaders of the Centers of Excellence to stake stock of the Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centres of Excellence (ACE II) project, which seeks to strengthen selected Eastern and Southern Africa higher education institutions to deliver quality postgraduate education and build collaborative research capacity in the regional priority areas.
Each of the selected 24 specialised regional centers are expected to receive funding of up to 6million US dollars to among other things, develop and enhance partnerships with national, regional and international academic institutions, as well as industry and the private sector to pursue academic excellence and greater impact.
