Man’s Best Friend to the Rescue: Dogs Might Smell Coronavirus in Humans

The fight against the coronavirus is now leading experts to think that dogs can smell the coronavirus.

A group of researchers will train dogs on a six-week project in airports to prove that COVID-19 sniffing dogs are possible.

One of these indicators came from researchers of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who are doing a study that dogs have the ability to detect the scent of malaria, as diseases might trigger different odors from those sick with it.

According to the head of disease control at the LSHTM mentioned that dogs detect the presence of malaria, with higher accuracy as with COVID-19 which is a respiratory disease.

There is a chance the body will exude a definite odor, if afflicted with it. Initial planning is to start the training program in six-weeks time, so that rapid detection of COVID-19 does not include an invasive analysis, to the tail end of the epidemic.

Dogs noses are sensitive enough to detect the slight changes in skin temperature, and this can be an indicator that a person has a fever related to COVID-19.

In this aspect, dogs are now useful in detecting possible coronavirus cases. Claire Guest, founder and chief executive of Medical Detection Dogs, said, "In principle, we're sure that dogs could detect Covid-19."

She added," We are now considering how we can safely catch the odor of the virus from patients and present it to the dogs."

The dogs are hoped to screen anybody, even asymptomatics which are of great concern. In the end, this may give an indication that if testing is needed or not.

Also read: COVID-19 Early Symptoms May Include Digestive Disorders Like Diarrhea

What are the benefits for us?

Most would agree that it is a fast, effective and non-invasive means to detect the bug, and the NHS (National Health Service) resources are used wisely and sent to where it does the most good.

These detection dogs will be used at airports to identify people who have the coronavirus in their systems.

This will be a measure to prevent the re-emergence of the contagion at a later date, which was stressed by Steve Lindsay from Durham University.

Current world cases and death versus that in the UK

All over the world, there are 668,705 cases and 31,065 deaths as of March 29, 2020, and the UK has 17,089 cases and 1,019 deaths registered as of March 29, 2020.

All these figures are not the actual total of cases, because the severe cases are the ones registered in the count.

What are the precedents to using trained sniffer dogs

Before the coronavirus came around, the charity Medical Detection Dogs had trained dogs for other specific illnesses that made it possible to consider sniffing the coronavirus.

These diseases besides malaria are cancer and Parkinson's as other major ailments that are just as serious and needing a cure.

Like cancer, the COVID-19 operates the same way, and it hijacks the cell machinery to replicate itself, so it might work with a dog's sensitive nose.

One concern is how the dogs can smell the patient's odor since close contact is a major way of transmission.

If dogs can smell the coronavirus, then it will possible to screen anyone, even those asymptomatic. It seems even in dire times, the loyalty of man's best friend is constant.