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Can dogs detect Covid-19? A British charity believes so, and has begun training canines to detect the coronavirus after previous detection success with various diseases.
Created in 2008 to harness dogs’ keen sense of smell to detect human disease, Medical Detection Dogs began work on the project late last month.
In their training room in Milton Keynes, in central England, the dogs are being intensively trained to detect samples of the virus and indicate when they found it for treatment.
The approach is based on the belief that each disease triggers a different smell, that canines are exceptionally well placed to smell.
The charity has previously worked with its dogs to detect cancers, Parkinson’s disease, and bacterial infections using samples taken from patients.
“We believe that dogs can detect COVID-19 and will be able to screen hundreds of people very, very quickly, so we know who needs to be screened and isolated,” Claire Guest, founder and executive director of Medical Detection Dogs, told AFP.
“We have evidence that dogs can detect bacteria and other diseases, so we believe that taking this project forward will make a big difference in the ability to control the spread of COVID-19.” Guest is working with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the University of Durham in northeast England, the same team that recently collaborated to show that dogs can be trained to detect malaria.
James Logan, head of LSHTM’s disease control department, said the project demonstrated that dogs can smell human odors with “extremely high precision.”
He added that there was “a very high chance” that they could detect COVID-19 in a similar way and potentially “revolutionize our response” to the disease.
The team aims to train the dogs over a six-week period to help provide the “fast, non-invasive diagnosis” tool.
Canines can also detect subtle changes in skin temperature, making them useful in determining if a person has a fever.
If successful, four-legged detection devices could be deployed at airports to identify people who carry the virus, according to Steve Lindsay of Durham University.
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has now skyrocketed to 1,246,840, according to the latest figures collected by AFP on Wednesday from official sources.
The number of actual infections is believed to be higher as many countries are only evaluating severe cases or patients requiring hospitalization.
