‘It’s a Game for Them.’ Scientists Around the World Are Teaching Dogs to Sniff Out COVID-19

Steve Lindsay, a public health entomologist at Durham University, is midway through explaining how dogs might play a role in detecting COVID-19 infections when a decidedly less-well trained canine interrupts our conversation. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’ve got a naughty black Labrador out in the back garden doing something it shouldn’t be doing,” Lindsay says. He disappears. I hear barking. He returns accompanied by a chocolate lab. “She’s not as skilled as the detection dogs,” Lindsay says as the pup tries to lick his face. “But it’s really interesting to see how a dog sees the world through its nose. It’s amazing actually.” It’s that olfactory prowess that could make dogs a useful ally in our battle against a virus that’s killed over 1 million people worldwide. Scientists have long known that people sick with certain diseases emit particular odors—different infections affect different parts of the body in different ways, often producing specific combinations of volatile compounds. Dogs have shown a remarkable ability to pick up on those airborne chemicals, detecting when people are infected with malaria, infectious bacteria, and even certain types of cancer. Now scientists are hoping that dogs’ keen sense of smell, 10,000 times better than that of humans, can help them identify people carrying COVID-19, too. Lindsay, along with collaborators at the London School of Hygi...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news