Sokoine University of Agriculture Veterinary School (Tuesday, August 4)

We spent most of the day today in lectures from various SUA vet school faculty on everything ranging from Rift Valley Fever to molecular techniques to identify illegal bushmeat traders to small animal practice and animal welfare in Tanzania. We also took a tour of the vet school, and it certainly made me appreciate what we have at Cornell (and UCSF for that matter) all the more.

The lab mouse facility: no barriers, and the ventilation was an open window

The small animal clinic here is fairly new, since the idea of small animal medicine is a fairly new one in Tanzania, and they have one big exam room with two tables, plus a surgery room and radiology room that are shared for all the animals they see.

Hospital at SUA: This was the main exam room, for large and small animals

One thing we saw today that was really unique was the facility for "Hero Rat" training. In Tanzania, these giant Gambian Rats are trained to sniff tuberculosis from sputum samples from people in the hospitals in Dar. The rats are also used elsewhere in Africa to sniff explosives from old land mines in war zones, and are light enough that they don't set off the mines, so they can be safely located and removed.

View from the Hero Rat training facility on SUA's campus

Rat sniffing TB sputum samples

We got to hold the giant gambian rats!