Have you ever wondered what it takes to start a nonprofit? Extensive questioning and research are, unsurprisingly, pretty important, but such large steps can be daunting. Such steps can be intimidating, too; with a hasty research phase, a commendable mission may falter underneath shoddy business planning, or maybe a solid business plan is built only to support a redundant, unspectacular mission. The roads to failure are numerous.
This is not meant to disappoint anyone. Although failure is easy, scrupulous work and copious help make starting a nonprofit feasible. There are a myriad of nonprofits that role model this success story-The Borgen Project included. To help you begin thinking about starting a nonprofit (or simply to inform anyone interested in the nonprofit thought process), here is a compilation of imperative questions to aid you in your research, with a little Borgen flare.
Key Questions:
1. You’re not flying solo, are you?
The answer should be simple: no. It is unrealistic to rely on a single committed person (presumably yourself) to carry the nonprofit (to carry it very far, that is). Before any nonprofit takes flight, there must be a team (the more, the merrier) of enthusiastic and inspired people to propel the project forward. If your passion is contagious, you’re off to a good start.
2. What resources do you think you will need, and why are they important?
While starting a nonprofit, having a detailed business plan and outline is integral. It allows you to establish a few practical points, examining both the efficacy and the originality of your nonprofit before it’s too late to reverse a bad decision.
For example, if there are similar organizations to your proposed one, instead of forming another, try what is called “fiscal sponsorship.” This means that your initiative becomes umbrellaed by a larger veteran nonprofit. Basically, this tax-exempt organization serves as the recipient of charitable donations to your organization, which would not yet be recognized as tax-exempt. It allows your project to grow (maybe one day allowing it to branch off on its own) without competing with identical nonprofits.
The second, just as important, benefit of a thorough business plan is that it gives you a comprehensive (and requisite) understanding of fiscal resources. If this sounds boring, sorry, but, too bad. Although establishing your goals, structure, budget, marketing plan and resource development/fundraising aren’t flashy, they are all important. This gives you time to think about partnerships as well – they can keep your nonprofit alive.
The Borgen Project has teams dedicated to working the logistics of the nonprofit. Clint Borgen may be the face of the organization, but without fundraisers, organizers or even interns, The Borgen Project would not be very effective.
3. What’s that avalanche of paperwork doing over there, and who can I go to to get rid of it?
Paperwork can be both dull and frustrating, and filing to become a registered nonprofit is no different. It is necessary in order to secure recognition at the state level and to become tax-exempt at the federal level. If you do at any time need help finding your way through this process, go to both friends and professionals. Friends can be supportive and offer helpful advice, but ultimately you will want to consult experts before making any serious decisions. Finding lawyers who specialize in tax-exempt organizations or nonprofit law will, in all likelihood, prove to be a rewarding course of action.
– Adam Kaminski
Sources: Grant Space, National Council of Nonprofits, About.com
Photo: Mashable
Girls Not Brides
There are girls as young as 13-years-old married off throughout the world. In developing countries, one out of every seven girls is married before her 15th birthday.
Girls married younger than the age of 18 often report that have been beaten by their husbands and forced to have sex. These girls often think it is acceptable for their husbands to beat them and make them feel powerless.
The main reasons for girls being married off include culture and parents’ desire to counteract a fear of their daughter getting molested. Tradition and culture are a big reason for young girls being married off; families are scared to stray from tradition in fear of being excluded from their communities. Poverty is another cause of child marriage. Poor families often marry off their daughters so that they have less expenses. They have one less body to feed, educate and clothe.
Although parents in certain situations marry their daughters off at young ages trying protect them, the young girls are still losing their human rights. They completely lose their childhoods.
Girls Not Brides is an organization working to protect girls from being married at a young age. They give a voice to the voiceless. Members of this organization are based in Africa, America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East; they are united in helping girls reach their full potential and not being married off at a young age.
Girls Not Brides works with 350 other civil organizations from over 60 countries. They believe that partnering up will bring attention to the issue and show that there are others who want to stop young marriages too.
Girls Not Brides reaches out to young girls and helps them feel empowered. They supply young girls with skills that will be useful in the future and have different workshops to show girls how to use their newly learned skills. This program also sets up support groups for young girls and boys to share their experiences so that they can become advocates against child marriage themselves.
Girls Not Brides has put together a technical brief on ending child marriages. Please take a look and see what you can do to help.
–Priscilla Rodarte
Sources: Girls Not Brides, Girls Not Brides, Girls Not Brides, Slate
Photo: WUNRN
Prosecuting Organ Harvesters in Europe
The international community awaits the European Union’s unveiling of a special tribunal for allegations against illegal organ harvesters in Kosovo in the late 1990s. Working for the EU, U.S. prosecutor John Clint Williamson will likely finish his investigation of the claims within this year. The government of Kosovo disapproves of the investigation, as many of its officials are former guerrilla members.
The renewed interest in long-awaited justice provides a grim reminder of a black market system responsible for the illegal global sale of approximately one organ every hour, according to the World Health Organization. In Europe alone, 120,000 desperate patients on dialysis and 40,000 patients awaiting organ transplants continue to buy organs from inhumane origins. Illegally obtained organs derive from a variety of methods including kidnapping, fraud, murder or seizure. The victim is ultimately unaware of the process.
In April of 2013, Serbia arrested five of its citizens involved in an illegal kidney ring serving wealthy patients in North America, Germany and Israel. Lutfi Deruishi, the leader, received an eight year sentence after the court convicted him of luring victims – often from Turkey, Moldova and Russia – to his clinic with the promise a large payout. The organ harvesters removed organs with little or no compensation and abandoned victims at the airport, which is how authorities eventually discovered the group. The prosecutor on the case, Jonathan Ratel, called the crimes a “..cruel harvest of the poor.”
The 2009 arrest of a Brooklyn man, Levy-Ishak Rosenbaum, resulted in the first federal prosecution of organ harvesting in the United States. He brokered sales to New Jersey patients of organs harvested from the poor of Israel and Moldova.
Impoverished Eastern Europeans find traffickers via the internet and believe the price of selling their organs will solve their desperate financial state. Traffickers often transport their victims across borders and threaten violence if the donor refuses to continue with the operation or reports the crime to police. These criminal organizations profit as the middleman between dying patients and impoverished donors, both willing to adopt extremes to survive. On the black market, organs can fetch tens of thousands of dollars – lungs and hearts selling for hundreds of thousands. The 15,000 to 20,000 kidneys trafficked each year account for 75 percent of all annual illegal organ sales.
The 2008 summit in Turkey of the Transplantation Society and International Society of Nephrology produced the Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism. This document focuses on the state’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable poor. Governments, according to the Declaration, should reinforce programs on kidney disease prevention and proper medical care for donors. Experts believe legislation against organ trafficking will need increased enforcement; additionally, donor pool regulations will need to be reexamined in order to end the exploitation of the world’s impoverished.
— Erica Lignell
Sources: The Guardian, Seattle Times, NBC, WHO, NY Times 1, NY Times 2, NY Daily News 1, NY Daily News 2, Telegraph, Reuters, Medscape
How to Start a Nonprofit
Have you ever wondered what it takes to start a nonprofit? Extensive questioning and research are, unsurprisingly, pretty important, but such large steps can be daunting. Such steps can be intimidating, too; with a hasty research phase, a commendable mission may falter underneath shoddy business planning, or maybe a solid business plan is built only to support a redundant, unspectacular mission. The roads to failure are numerous.
This is not meant to disappoint anyone. Although failure is easy, scrupulous work and copious help make starting a nonprofit feasible. There are a myriad of nonprofits that role model this success story-The Borgen Project included. To help you begin thinking about starting a nonprofit (or simply to inform anyone interested in the nonprofit thought process), here is a compilation of imperative questions to aid you in your research, with a little Borgen flare.
Key Questions:
1. You’re not flying solo, are you?
The answer should be simple: no. It is unrealistic to rely on a single committed person (presumably yourself) to carry the nonprofit (to carry it very far, that is). Before any nonprofit takes flight, there must be a team (the more, the merrier) of enthusiastic and inspired people to propel the project forward. If your passion is contagious, you’re off to a good start.
2. What resources do you think you will need, and why are they important?
While starting a nonprofit, having a detailed business plan and outline is integral. It allows you to establish a few practical points, examining both the efficacy and the originality of your nonprofit before it’s too late to reverse a bad decision.
For example, if there are similar organizations to your proposed one, instead of forming another, try what is called “fiscal sponsorship.” This means that your initiative becomes umbrellaed by a larger veteran nonprofit. Basically, this tax-exempt organization serves as the recipient of charitable donations to your organization, which would not yet be recognized as tax-exempt. It allows your project to grow (maybe one day allowing it to branch off on its own) without competing with identical nonprofits.
The second, just as important, benefit of a thorough business plan is that it gives you a comprehensive (and requisite) understanding of fiscal resources. If this sounds boring, sorry, but, too bad. Although establishing your goals, structure, budget, marketing plan and resource development/fundraising aren’t flashy, they are all important. This gives you time to think about partnerships as well – they can keep your nonprofit alive.
The Borgen Project has teams dedicated to working the logistics of the nonprofit. Clint Borgen may be the face of the organization, but without fundraisers, organizers or even interns, The Borgen Project would not be very effective.
3. What’s that avalanche of paperwork doing over there, and who can I go to to get rid of it?
Paperwork can be both dull and frustrating, and filing to become a registered nonprofit is no different. It is necessary in order to secure recognition at the state level and to become tax-exempt at the federal level. If you do at any time need help finding your way through this process, go to both friends and professionals. Friends can be supportive and offer helpful advice, but ultimately you will want to consult experts before making any serious decisions. Finding lawyers who specialize in tax-exempt organizations or nonprofit law will, in all likelihood, prove to be a rewarding course of action.
– Adam Kaminski
Sources: Grant Space, National Council of Nonprofits, About.com
Photo: Mashable
Donate Your Digital Space
When the terms “donate” and “global poverty” are present in the same sentence, many people tend to think of money or supplies. For some, the idea of volunteering one’s time to help the poor may even be the first thought to come to mind. In an age of growing technology, however, donating digital space can be as effective as donating time, money or supplies.
A study conducted by the Pew Internet Project in September of 2013 found that 73 percent of adults using the Internet were using some form of online social networking. Since then, the statistic has increased. The number of Internet users with accounts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram is at an all-time high, meaning that personal digital space is viewed frequently.
Because users can post close to whatever they choose on their own pages of these social media sites, organizations and charitable foundations have begun to seek these personal pages as a stage for advocacy and awareness. Like a sign on a physical front lawn, a Facebook wall-post about an organization’s efforts to provide education to children in Africa generates awareness amongst viewers and other Facebook users.
On many of these sites, account users have the option of setting a photograph as a profile picture. This picture represents the user and becomes visible in many locations on the social media channel’s website. One way for social media users to donate digital space is to use a flyer, campaign poster or other visual as their profile pictures.
Heifer International is an organization that has caught on to this trend. On the Heifer International website, supporters can download Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus “Profile Packs” that include photos to use as profile pictures and cover photos. These photos promote Heifer International’s mission of ending global hunger and describe ways for people to get involved in the organization’s efforts. Anyone that views the particular social media user’s page can see that he or she supports Heifer International. Additionally, the photos could spark interest in the fight against global hunger.
The trend of donating digital space is becoming very popular. Local artists will change their profile pictures to promote performances, students running for school government positions will make their cover photos images of their campaign slogans and sororities and fraternities will advertise for philanthropic fundraisers by changing their profile pictures to flyers containing event details.
The power of the profile picture is not something to underestimate, which explains why donating digital space can have such a significant impact. By choosing to provide online space for charitable organizations like Heifer International to get the word out to the masses, anyone can help promote awareness of global poverty.
– Emily Walthouse
Sources: Heifer International, Pew Internet
Photo: Social Media Delivered
SA Fly Farms Help Protein Production
Fly larvae (or maggots, as they are so affectionately called) are considered some of the most disgusting forms of life on the planet today. Nevertheless, they are instrumental for fish and animal life, and are therefore important to all humans, in some way. Or at least, that’s the theory behind AgriProtein, a startup business based in Stellenbosch, South Africa that’s looking to create protein feed from an army of maggots.
The start up recently began building the world’s largest commercial fly farm near Cape Town this week, and the project will house over 8.5 billion flies in the coming years to produce dozens of metric tons of protein meal, oils and fertilizer. The business capitalizes on one of nature’s most economical bottom feeders, and hopes the venture will lead to a more sustainable system of protein production and waste recycling.
But how does the business “harvest” the money maggots? The business extracts protein feed, extruded oil and fertilizer from the engorged larvae in a process (and industry) they call nutrient recycling. The idea is simple: you gather a large group of flies, collect their eggs (leaving three to four percent of the eggs to hatch to maintain the population of the flies), put them in a pile, and let them eat to their hearts’ (or whatever organ they use) content.
The startup feeds fly larvae unwanted waste from animal byproducts, food scraps and manure (basically anything you can think of that’s absolutely revolting and useless) to produce metric tons of wet, engorged larvae—insects the business can use to produce a variety of nutrient stuffs. Jason Drew, a member of the startup’s executive team, says AgriProtein plans to convert 110 metric tons of waste per day to 17 metric tons of larvae by October 2014. “It’s about cleaning up waste locally and making the food chain sustainable,” Drew Said.
This past May, the business “broke ground” on its first industrial scale factory and was even awarded the $100,000 Innovation Prize for Africa, a prize sponsored by the United Nations and the African Innovation Foundation. The award continues a recent stretch of international partnerships as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the German government and the University of Stellenbosch, a premier South African research institution, partnered with the budding startup.
Currently, AgriProtein has received much of its startup capital from international donors, and has attracted the interest of 43 different countries. Drew remains optimistic that the business will see tremendous success in the coming years, and cites returns of over 20% on initial investments.
With plans to build 38 fly farms, AgriProtein has ambitious goals to revolutionize global agriculture. Although the start-up is in its nascence, its inventive approach to the waste-loving insects shows promise for South Africa and the world over. It has the potential to provide animal feed at a lower cost (thereby increasing the ability of farmers worldwide to increase food production and reduce food insecurity) and offer a more sustainable replacement for traditional animal feed that can reduce global waste.
– Joseph McAdams
Sources: Agriprotein 1, Agriprotein 2, RawStory, The Guardian, Pub, Bloomberg
Photo: Rawstory.com
Compulsory Education in Venezuela
Like the educational system in the United States, the Venezuelan Ministry of Education mandates a certain number of years of formal schooling. In Venezuela, the government expects children to attend nine years of either public or private education. The results of such mandates have proved successful, as Venezuela has one of the most successful educational systems in South America.
Students in Venezuela attend six years of primary school, beginning in first grade and ending in sixth grade. After the first six years, students move on to a secondary middle education that lasts from seventh to ninth grade. These years make up the nine government mandated years of education.
Public, free education is available to all Venezuelan children, and is very popular at the primary level. More than 92 percent of Venezuelan children under the age of 11 attend school. Public education continues at all levels in Venezuela, including tertiary education. Private education is also an option, but it is more popular for secondary middle education or education beyond or before the compulsory years than it is at the primary level. About 25 percent of students attend private schools to complete secondary education in Venezuela.
After ninth grade, students have the option of continuing on to secondary diversified education. This level is much like the high school level of education in the United States, but the diversified element sets it apart. In Venezuela, pupils graduating from the secondary middle education who wish to further their schooling must choose between sciences and the humanities. Their choice defines the subjects that they will study during the two years of secondary diversified education.
The number of students that choose to continue with diversified education is a testament to the success of nine years of compulsory education. Because the government mandates years of formal school, education in Venezuela is at the forefront of many citizens’ minds. The desire to further the knowledge acquired for nine years is greater than it might be in a country that does not regulate schooling as much.
Many parents also choose to send their young children to school before they enter first grade. Preschools are very popular in Venezuela and help children acquire necessary social skills. These children can be at an advantage because they can focus on the information learned in classes without having to get used to a classroom setting.
Tertiary education, the equivalent to the American university or college level, is available to anyone wishing to pursue higher education in Venezuela. The Central University of Venezuela is just one of the almost 100 tertiary institutions in the country. There are approximately one million students enrolled for free at these institutions.
Another testament to the success of compulsory education in Venezuela is the country’s literary rate. 95 percent of citizens aged 15 years or older know how to read and write. This number is higher than all three neighboring countries’ rates. Columbia is a close second place at 94 percent while Brazil and Guyana have 90 and 85 percent literacy rates, respectively.
The educational system in Venezuela has not always been so successful. The number of students in primary schools has increased by more than seven million pupils since 1998. Additionally, the percentage of students that chose to pursue academics at the tertiary level rose from 28 to 78 in just one decade.
Former president Hugo Chávez made significant changes to the laws regarding education in Venezuela that account for this drastic leap in attendance rates. His reforms led to the creation of 13 Venezuelan universities and more accessible primary and secondary education in rural areas. By making education more accessible, the Ministry of Education could guarantee public schooling to all children and, therefore, feasibly mandate nine years of education.
Though education in Venezuela still needs more funding from the national budget, its policies are strong. The statistics regarding literacy and attendance rates from the last 15 years prove that compulsory education is beneficial to country’s educational system.
— Emily Walthouse
Sources: WENR, ClassBase, Axis of Logic, World Bank
Photo: Flickr
U.S. Threatens to Pull Aid from Afghanistan
Preliminary results of the Afghan election, reported by the Afghan Independent Election Commission on Monday July 7, threaten to create further chaos in the country. The situation prompted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to warn on Tuesday that “Any action to take power by extralegal means will cost Afghanistan the financial and security support of the U.S. and the international community.”
The results declared Ashraf Ghani in the lead of his opponent Abdullah Abdullah, sparking demonstrations from both parties claiming the elections to be marred by fraud. Repeated statements from election officials that the results are not final have done little to quench the protests.
Mr. Abdullah’s camp has spent the days since the reporting of the preliminary results building support for a parallel government. Claims that the election was engineered by Mr. Ghani, the election officials and current President Hamid Karzai have been made by allies of Mr. Abdullah.
“From this moment on, we announce our own legitimate government led by Abdullah Abdullah,” writes Atta Mohammed Noor, governor of Balkh Province, on Facebook.
Mr. Abdullah himself has urged his supporters to wait before taking action. He addressed a gathering of his leading supporters on Tuesday: “We are the winner of this round of elections without any doubt. I ask you to give me a few days to consult and speak.” This speech was delivered after a portrait of Hamid Karzai was torn down by his supporters while they cried: “Death to Karzai.”
The preliminary results threatens to inflame festering ethnic tensions. Mr. Ghani and many of his supporters are Pashtun, the majority-ethnic group that has historically been in power. In contrast, Mr. Abdullah derives his support from the Tajik ethnic group, which has been historically marginalized. Mr. Abdullah and his supporters feel they may never see political power, unless they take it by force.
Financial Times quotes Kate Clark, a senior analyst at the Afghanistan Analyst Network: “the election has thrown up ‘a lot of combustible material’ that both candidates had stopped just short of lighting.”
President Obama has personally phoned both candidates, telling them explicitly that violence or illegal action will cause the U.S. to withdraw all aid from Afghanistan. While both President Obama and Secretary Kerry have voiced their support for a thorough election audit, the threat of rescinding support makes clear the U.S.’s position on any action taken by either side outside the limits of the law.
The U.S. has been a strong financial and security backer for the Afghan government. The United States Agency for International Development is one of the agencies working to improve conditions in Afghanistan. In aggregate, since 2002, USAID has spent $13 billion on programs in the country. Economic growth has stabilized at nine percent per year, eight million children are enrolled in school—including 2.9 million girls—and 60 percent of the population lives within access of health services, since the fall of the Taliban.
U.S. aid is vital to the survival of a country where 50 percent of the population lives in poverty and 7.5 million are food insecure.
“America does have a stake in Afghanistan—and Afghanistan still needs America,” Kate Clark sums up the situation.
— Julianne O’Connor
Sources: First Post, The New York Times, Financial Times
Photo: Afghanistan Study Group
Somali Food Crisis to Intensify
The United States government recently acknowledged the presence of over 100 military advisors who have been secretly operating in Somalia since 2007. While they are not engaged in combat missions, they have routinely assisted the Somali government by providing their tactical expertise in the Somali effort to combat Islamist militants. Those militants comprise al Shabaab, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist organization which most notably claimed responsibility for the September 2013 attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya which resulted in 67 deaths.
The African Union Mission in Somalia currently has 22,000 troops stationed in Somalia from various African countries and the United States has stated its intent to aid soldiers of the Somali National Army. However, Somalia is far from a stable country. On July 8 al Shabaab militants attacked Somali’s presidential palace in Mogadishu. They used a car bomb to blast open the gates and then proceeded onto the grounds. Their attack was eventually thwarted by Somali and AMISOM troops but the threat of violence in the nation’s capital still looms.
Despite the various armed conflicts taking place throughout the country, Somalia is faced with another pressing issue: the Somali food crisis. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently disclosed the possibility of a worsening food crisis in Somalia. This crisis would be the result of a predicted water shortage following a lackluster rain season earlier this year, rising food prices in urban areas and dwindling humanitarian assistance in the country.
The food agency also acknowledged the presence of acute malnutrition in Mogadishu which requires intensified humanitarian aid over the coming months. The displaced populace in areas like Mogadishu where armed violence has become regular has served to exacerbate the food crisis. While it is clear that the Somali government is finally receiving the military aid it needs, the food aid it also requires has not yet occurred.
— Taylor Dow
Sources: HORSEED Media, Daily Times, Fox news, CNN, Reuters
Photo: World Vision
10 Facts About Global Health
Global health issues are being addressed now more than ever, here is a list of 10 facts about global health that show how far the world has come and how much more progress needs to be made.
1.
Around the world, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death. They account for approximately 30 percent of all deaths. At least 80 percent of these deaths that occur prematurely could be prevented by adhering to a healthy diet, getting regular physical activity and avoiding use of tobacco products.
2.
Improving sanitation, water supply, personal hygiene and management of water resources could prevent nearly 10 percent of diseases and 6.3 percent of all deaths around the world.
3.
Currently, approximately 6.6 million children under the age of 5 die annually. By the year 2025, it is estimated that there will still be five million deaths among this age group. Ninety-seven percent of these deaths will occur in developing countries, and most will be a result of infectious diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea or malnutrition.
4.
Sixty-five percent of people around the world live in a country where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.
5.
It is estimated that 39.5 million people worldwide are living with HIV or AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 70 percent of the cases.
6.
There are about 200 million women around the world who do not have access to effective family planning methods, like reproductive information and care services, despite the desire to use these resources. If these resources can be more widely accessed, unplanned pregnancy rates would drop, unsafe abortions would become less frequent and maternal and infant deaths would be reduced significantly.
7.
Preterm birth, birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is the most common cause of infant mortality globally. Fifteen million babies are born preterm every year and more than one million of them will die.
8.
The global average life expectancy has increased significantly over the past 20 years. The overall average is now 70 years; in low-income countries it is 62 and in high-income countries it is 79.
9.
Eight hundred women die everyday due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
10.
The global population today is made up of 613 million children under age five, 1.7 billion children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19, 3.1 billion adults between the ages of 20 and 64, and 390 million elderly over the age of 65.
— Hannah Cleveland
Sources: WHO 1, WHO 2, Facing the Future, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Photo: WHOIAA
Rats Detecting Tuberculosis
Rats are commonly thought to carry disease, but what if they diagnosed disease instead? In fact, they do. Contrary to popular belief, rats are highly intelligent creatures that can be trained to sniff out specific odors with incredible accuracy. They have already been used in warzones to sniff out landmines; now, a research center in Tanzania has rats detecting tuberculosis in patients’ saliva.
The giant rats being trained are especially successful at distinguishing an affected person’s saliva because they can smell “in stereo,” meaning that with one sniff they can differentiate two different odors. One out of every 100 rat genes is dedicated to their olfactory abilities – in humans, only one of every 1000 genes has to do with our capacity to smell. Rats’ superior noses allow them to diagnose a TB patient in only seven minutes. Diagnosis by human physicians can take all day.
Working to make TB diagnosis easier and more accurate is especially important for low- and middle-income countries, where 95 percent of all TB-related deaths occur. If caught early, TB can be treated with a course of antibiotics. Because TB is a bacterial disease, its symptoms may not present for long periods of time; the bacteria, which are spread through the air when affected individuals cough or sneeze, can lie dormant in the body before they begin to cause more severe symptoms. Because rats use the smell of the bacteria rather than a patient’s symptoms to diagnose TB, they can diagnose patients much earlier than doctors can.
Though the equipment and expertise necessary to train these rats can be somewhat expensive, this method has the potential to save over a million lives and prevent illness in nearly nine million more every year. Foreign aid could be useful in providing trained rats to health centers in developing countries or assisting in the training of rats abroad.
Seeing rats as agents of health rather than disease is the first step to eliminating TB altogether. By bringing these intelligent animals into our health centers and our hearts, we can prevent the transmission of one of the world’s deadliest diseases.
– Elise L. Riley
Sources: World Health Organization, BBC
Photo: Flickr