Can dogs help us to identify coronavirus positives?
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The young scientists of the University of Pennsylvania's School of veterinary medicine and the scientists of the UK are also trying to find the coronavirus affected victims in a new way.
They are researching whether they could take the help of the dogs as they have a strong sense of smell.
The first phase of the trial will be led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, along with the charity and Durham University. The Britain government has funded it by £500,000.
The trial will reveal whether the "COVID dogs" - made up of Labradors and cocker spaniels can spot the virus in humans from odor samples before symptoms appear. The first phase will involve NHS staff in London hospitals collecting odor samples from those infected with coronavirus and those who are uninfected. Six dogs - Norman, Digby, Storm, Star, Jasper, and Asher - will then go through training to identify the virus from the samples.
The charity said that the training could take as long as six to eight weeks. After months of training, the government will decide whether the dogs are useful in identifying the virus or not. More than 10 years of research gathered by Medical Detection Dogs has shown that dogs can be trained to smell out the odor of disease.
Dr. Claire Guest, the charity's co-founder and chief executive, said she was "sure our dogs will be able to find the odor of Covid-19". Prof. James Logan, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said, "Our previous work has shown that malaria has a distinctive odor, and with Medical Detection Dogs, we successfully trained dogs to accurately detect malaria.
The dogs are already helping to detect odors of certain cancers, malaria, and Parkinson's diseases.
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