Support APOPO's HeroRATs' life-saving missions!

A very warm welcome to the latest updates on your support of our HeroRATs! 

HeroRAT superstar, Magawa, memorial in Cambodia

Magawa was arguably APOPO’s most famous HeroRAT, winning the PDSA gold medal for bravery, and then going on to earn the Guinness World Record title for the most landmines found. So it seems only fitting that we unveiled the Magawa HeroRAT statue in recognition of an extraordinary legacy in Cambodia last month.

Of course, Magawa’s achievements were part of a much larger humanitarian effort led by APOPO and supporters like you. Thanks to your help, working alongside human deminers, the HeroRATs help identify landmines and other explosives quickly and safely, and because they search for the odor of explosives rather than metal and are too light to trigger landmines, they provide an effective tool for clearance operations.

Their impact on productivity is significant. A single mine detection rat can search an area the size of a tennis court in around 30 minutes, whereas the same task could take a deminer using a metal detector up to four days, depending on how much scrap metal is around. Since 2014, APOPO’s operations in Cambodia have helped clear more than 40 square kilometres of land and locate and destroy thousands of landmines and items of unexploded ordnance.

Magawa’s remarkable record was therefore not an isolated achievement, but part of a proven system that has delivered results across multiple teams, locations, and years of painstaking work. His success demonstrated the effectiveness of an approach that continues to help communities reclaim land once considered too dangerous to use.

A Legacy That Continues

Magawa was born and trained at APOPO’s Training Center in Tanzania, based at Sokoine University of Agriculture, before becoming one of the organisation’s most successful Mine Detection Rats. Although his working life ended in 2021, the challenge he helped address remains far from over.

Around the world, landmines and unexploded ordnance continue to kill or injure people every hour, with civilians accounting for the majority of victims. In Cambodia and other affected countries, APOPO teams continue to clear contaminated land and reduce the risks that still limit how people live, travel, farm, and build.

Today, a new generation of HeroRATs carries that mission forward. In Cambodia, HeroRAT Imeldo has become APOPO’s adoption rat, helping maintain the connection between individual animals and the supporters whose contributions make this work possible.

The statue of Magawa stands not only as a tribute to one extraordinary animal, but also as a symbol of the wider effort to create safer communities. It celebrates what has already been achieved while reminding visitors that the work of clearing landmines — and restoring land to the people who depend on it — continues every day.

This version flows naturally after the "A Visible Reminder of an Invisible Threat" section and gives the article a stronger, more forward-looking ending.

Tuberculosis (TB): the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

Currently working in Ethiopia and Tanzania, our TB programs are expanding and doing incredibly well, helping people start treatment in the quickest possible time. 

Since 2007, our incredible HeroRATs have discovered an additional 36,686 cases of TB, which would otherwise have gone undetected and undiagnosed. According to the World Health Organization, each person with active TB has the potential to infect 15 other people a year, this represents an amazing 366,712 cases of TB that have potentially been stopped, thanks to your support.

How APOPO Helps

In Morogoro, Tanzania, eight-year-old twins Zainab and Omary began coughing and running fevers at night. Their grandmother brought them to Sabasaba Hospital, where initial tests showed no tuberculosis (TB). Because a close family member had recently died of TB, the clinic sent the twins’ sputum for a second screening through APOPO’s TB detection program. 

APOPO’s HeroRATs flagged both samples for further analysis. APOPO lab confirmatory tests came back positive, and the clinic was notified. This allowed their clinic to begin treatment immediately. 

With daily medication and regular follow-up from health staff, both children completed six months of treatment and have fully recovered. Today, they are healthy, back in primary school, and thriving.

Thank you so much as always for your unending support - it truly means the world to us.

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