Lulu

She wants her neighbors in Tanzania to know the truth about TB.

This is Lulu. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) by APOPO’s scent-detecting African giant pouched rats after the local clinic in Tanzania failed to detect it. APOPO’s mission is to develop detection rat technology (nicknamed HeroRATs) to provide solutions for global problems and, in Lulu’s case, it was life-saving.

“I was once very sick. I almost died because my local clinic couldn’t identify my illness. Thankfully APOPO found TB. They saved my life.”

“I got treatment and recovered. I then joined MKUTA to help raise TB awareness.”

MKUTA is a group of volunteers — all TB survivors — who work in clinics and in communities.

Lulu understands her community and shares:

“Many people avoid clinic due to costs of transport and time off work or fear of TB stigma.”

“We teach the facts, dispel the myths, and urge people to get tested as soon as possible. We also teach them how to provide a good sputum sample (harder than you think!).”

“Most importantly we make sure that people leave good contact details so that if clinics misdiagnose them, but the HeroRATs later find TB… we can still track them down and get them back to the clinic to start their treatment and get well again.”

“TB is easily curable as long as you get tested in time and get on treatment — like me!”

Donate to APOPO to support life-saving early detection like Lulu’s.

This is a story from GlobalGiving’s Voices from the Crowd series.