Researchers Strongly Believe Dogs Can Be Trained To Sniff Out Coronavirus In Humans

Dogs are really helpful when it comes to sniffing out drugs, bombs and even diseases like cancer and diabetes. Now, a team of scientists in London are working hard to train dogs so they can sniff out COVID-19 in humans. For starters, they believe it's quite possible to train these doggos to do so.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is working in collaboration with Medical Detection Dogs and Durham University on a project to train dogs to detect the virus in asymptomatic patients.

These researchers believe that there is a chance that dogs can be used as a rapid diagnostic screen to detect COVID-19 positive patients. This project is based on previous research on dogs being able to detect malaria in people with no symptoms.

"It¡¯s very early stages. We know diseases have odours ¡ª including respiratory diseases such as influenza ¡ª and that those odours are in fact quite distinct. There is a very, very good chance that COVID-19 has a specific odour, and if it does I am really confident that the dogs would be able to learn that smell and detect it," Bloomberg quoted James Logan, head of LSHTM¡¯s Department of Disease Control as saying.

Claire Guest, founder and chief executive of Medical Detection Dogs, told AFP that they are ¡®sure¡¯ that dogs can detect coronavirus.

"We are now looking into how we can safely catch the odour of the virus from patients and present it to the dogs. The aim is that dogs will be able to screen anyone, including those who are asymptomatic, and tell us whether they need to be tested. 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," Guest reportedly said.

According to the research the dogs could be ready to detect the virus in about two months. If the research is successful dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in public places like airports.