Coronavirus: NHS to use sniffer dogs in Covid-testing trial

In the past sniffer dogs have been used by man to track narcotics and explosives with their keen sense of smell - now canines could be deployed to detect whether a patient is infected with Covid-19 following an NHS-backed trial.

Testing is currently underway to see if canines are able to detect the diseases caused by the Sars-Cov-2 virus, with scientists currently seeking “odour samples” to see if dogs can accurately pick up the scent of the disease in asymptomatic patients.

If successful, researchers hope the use of dogs could be deployed both in a medical setting and in the world at large - with animals potentially able to screen 250 people per hour.

Professor Steve Lindsay, from the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, said: "If we can show that our trained dogs can identify people carrying the virus, but who are not sick, it will be a game changer.

"We will then be able to scale-up the use of dogs at ports of entry to identify travellers entering the country with the virus.

"This could be very important to help prevent a second wave of the epidemic."

The trial, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in collaboration with the charity Medical Detection Dogs and Durham University, has called on volunteers to provide samples of breath and body odour by wearing a mask for three hours, socks and a T-shirt for 12 hours.

11 hospitals have signed up for the trial so far, with 92 employees at Kettering General Hospital taking part along with staff due for testing as part of routine checks undertaken by NHS employees.

Members of the public who have mild Covid-19 symptoms and are due to have a swab test, or have had a swab test conducted in the previous 24 hours, are also being recruited by researchers.

Kettering General Hospital's lead nurse for research, Joanne Walsh, said: "Our contribution involves recruiting staff volunteers from colleagues who are about to have a Covid-19 swab test.

"After having their swab test we ask them to wear special nylon socks for 12 hours and a mask for three hours and then to bag these up and return them to us.

"We then send the samples, along with whether the person has tested positive or negative for Covid-19, to the team who are doing the research with the dogs in Milton Keynes.

"The dogs are trained to sniff the samples and indicate whether they are positive or negative.

"This can then be compared with the actual test results on the person to see if the dog was right."

It is not the first time dogs have been used to spot medical phenomenon due to the sensitivity of their sense of smell.

Claire Guest, head of Milton-Keynes based firm Medical Detection Dogs, who are training animals for the trial, said: "Our dogs have already successfully detected different types of cancer, Parkinson's and malaria among other diseases which affect millions of people around the world.

"We are very proud that a dog's nose could be part of a solution to find a fast, non-invasive way of diagnosing Covid-19 and make a tangible difference to any future pandemics."

Additional reporting by PA