TECH

Sniffer dogs begin to be tested to detect people with coronavirus by smell 

Sniffer dogs are already able to detect odors from people with some diseases, such as certain types of cancer, malaria and Parkinson's disease.
Now they have been trained to detect people with covid-19 by the charity Medical Detection Dogs and have begun to be tested against coronavirus.
The first phase of the tests, which are being done in the UK, also has the participation of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Durham. The project also receives funding from the British government.
Innovation Minister Lord Bethell said he hoped the dogs could provide "quick results" as part of the government's broader testing strategy.
The test will check whether sniffer dogs-Labradors and cocker spaniels-can detect the virus in humans from odor samples before symptoms appear.
It will establish whether so-called bio-detection dogs, which can track up to 250 people per hour, can be used as a new early warning measure to detect covid-19 in the future.
The first phase will involve the NHS team (the UK public health system) in London hospitals collecting odor samples from those infected with coronavirus and those who have not been infected. Breath and body odor samples can come from various sources, including used face masks.
Six dogs-Norman, Digby, Storm, Star, Jasper and Asher - will undergo training to identify the virus from the samples. The institution said that training can take from six to eight weeks. 

Road and airports
After an initial three-month testing phase, the government will decide where it believes dogs will be most useful.
One possibility is that they can be used at points of entry into the country, such as airports, to detect people possibly contaminated with the coronavirus. Dogs could also be used in testing centers as another form of screening.
More than 10 years of research collected by Medical Detection Dogs have shown that dogs can be trained to smell the odor of diseases with the equivalent dilution of a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic pools.
Claire Guest, co-founder and executive director of the institution, said she "is sure that our dogs will be able to find the odor of covid-19." If everything goes well, the dogs will move on to a second phase.
"The second Test will be practical, with people. Then we hope to work with other agencies to train more dogs for the same job," she says.
Dogs were previously trained to detect malaria from "foot odor samples" - nylon socks worn by seemingly healthy children in The Gambia.
"Our previous work has shown that malaria has a characteristic odor and we have successfully trained medical sniffer dogs to accurately recognize sick people," says James Logan of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"This, combined with the knowledge that respiratory diseases can alter body odor, leaves us hopeful that dogs can also detect covid-19."

BBC