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Sniffer dogs have proven very effective in detecting drugs, weapons, and other contraband at airports.

This is largely due to their incredibly sensitive sense of smell.

Medical detection dogs have also been trained to sniff out various diseases like malaria, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease, all of which produce a distinctive odour.

Respiratory diseases, in particular, produce a scent that’s easily detectable for canines, which forms the basis of research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Researchers are working with the charity Medical Detection Dogs, and the UK’s Durham University, to test whether dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in people, even if they’re asymptomatic.

CNN reports:

The UK government has given the team more than £500,000 (over $600,000) to put towards the research.

This preliminary trial has recruited six dogs, dubbed “The Super Six” — they’re all either labradors or cocker spaniels.

Professor Steve Lindsay, a public health entomologist at the UK’s Durham University, says the first step to training the dogs is to collect human odour samples.

They’re getting subjects to wear face masks for a few hours. Then the masks are passed on to the dogs, and used to help the animals distinguish between different scents.

It’s not just face masks that are being used — they’re also getting subjects to wear nylon socks.

“Which is a bit strange,” admits Lindsay. “But we’ve known from our previous experience that this is a really good way of collecting odors from people and it’s such an easy way to do it.”

If the study yields results, the first set of dogs could be deployed to key entry points like airports, where they have the potential to screen up to 250 people per hour.

Here’s how it will work:

Cape Town accounts for 60% of cases in South Africa, and 10% of the entire continent, which some believe is due to the influx of tourists from hard-hit regions.

Many of these tourists may have been asymptomatic on entry, and therefore wouldn’t have been detected by the initial screening method that relied on temperature checks.

If medical detection dogs can be trained to sniff out the infection, it would be groundbreaking, and a massive step towards the early detection of COVID-19.

[source:cnn]