Health
April 16, 2020 | 10:00pm
Dogs might join the good fight to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in humans–especially for those who are symptom free, according to a team of researchers.
Due to the urgent need of coronavirus testing, preparations to intensively train dogs to detect asymptomatic carries of the virus have started and could be ready in six weeks, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“It’s very early stages,” says James Logan, head of LSHTM’s Department of Disease Control.
“We know diseases have odors — including respiratory diseases such as influenza — and that those odors are in fact quite distinct. There is a very, very good chance that Covid-19 has a specific odor, and if it does I am really confident that the dogs would be able to learn that smell and detect it.”
Dogs have a highly developed sense of smell and are able to sniff out subtle changes in skin temperature –they already are used to diagnosis various medical conditions in humans like malaria, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and cancer.
The LSHTM has even trained Labradors and cocker spaniels to detect malaria–by sniffing.
“Our previous work demonstrated that dogs can detect odors from humans with a malaria infection with extremely high accuracy — above the World Health Organization standards for a diagnostic,” said Logan in a press release.
If the project is successful, dogs will be able supplement ongoing testing by screening for the virus accurately and could “triage” 250 people per hour– by the summer in England.
Health Dogs might be able to sniff out the coronavirus - New York Post
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