Dogs being trained in UK to sniff out COVID-19 patients to help battle the pandemic

Dogs are always considered to be a man's best friend and a true guardian, and this time the saying has been brought into action recently when the Medical Detection Dogs charitable organisation came forth with a theory that the dogs will soon play a vital role in halting the spread of deadly coronavirus. The charity, based outside Milton Keynes, is working with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University to train dogs to sniff the virus so that its spread can be further prevented.

Sniffing the virus

The people out there believe that dogs could be trained to sniff out the disease within six weeks to provide a rapid, non-invasive diagnosis. The charity said that the dogs searching for COVID-19 would be trained in the same way as those dogs the charity has already trained to detect diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s and bacterial infections – by sniffing samples in the charity’s training room and indicating when they have found it. They are also able to detect subtle changes in temperature of the skin, so could potentially tell if someone is down with fever or not. 

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Elucidating further upon the theory, Claire Guest, founder, and chief executive of Medical Detection Dogs emphasized and laid confidence on the dogs who could actually detect COVID-19. Currently, the charity is thinking of the best possible ways of how they can safely catch the odor of the virus from patients and present it to the dogs so that they can recognize it. The aim of the organization is that the dogs will be able to screen anyone, including those who are asymptomatic, and tell us whether they need to be tested once they present the odor of the patients. This would be fast, effective and non-invasive and make sure the limited NHS (National Health Service) testing resources are only used where they are really needed.

Professor James Logan, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that their previous work demonstrated that dogs can detect odours from humans with a malaria infection with extremely high accuracy – above the World Health Organisation standards for a diagnostic. The researchers know that other respiratory diseases like COVID-19, change the body odour so there is a very high chance that dogs will be able to detect it.

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