UK charity Medical Detection Dogs has successfully trained canines to detect malaria, parkinson’s disease, and some cancers in humans. It is now working with London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Durham University to test them on the coronavirus. The government has contributed a half million pounds towards the project to determine if dogs could detect the Coronavirus virus too.
What If These Dogs Could Detect the Covid-19 Virus?
It may sound like a long shot but Norman, Digby, Storm, Star, Jasper and Asher are raring to go. That’s because these labradors and cocker spaniels have impressive track records as bio-detection dogs. Moreover it seems they could process as many as 250 people per hour, and that would be wonderful if they succeeded.
Personnel at National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in London will first collect odor samples for the test phase. Then these will be used to determine if dogs could detect the Covid-19 virus from breath and body samples collected from patients with the virus. Medical Detection Dogs estimates the animals will take six to eight weeks to train up.
A Possible Roll Out If the Trial is a Success
Scientists are considering stationing Norman, Digby, Storm, Star, Jasper, Asher and their protégés at UK points of entry. They could also serve duty at testing stations as backups to swab tests.
This is however not a new technology. Medical Detection Dogs has an impressive 10-year record with its animals. They are able to detect malaria, parkinson’s disease, and some cancers from very small samples.
The charity’s co-founder and chief executive Dr Claire Guest is confident her dogs will detect the covid-19 virus from its odor. The fact the disease changes a person’s body odor makes us especially hopeful, adds Prof James Logan. He is from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and working with her on the project.
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