Thought of the Day - June 27 - Detector Dogs

You may have heard reports that a number of trials are underway to teach dogs to detect COVID-19 in humans. This is not surprising seeing that dogs can detect other diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and malaria.

Here are some of the current studies now underway (all of which should come to fruition by July):

• UK: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, along with the charity and Durham University, has been backed with £500,000 of government funding;

• France: Tests conducted with trained German Shepherds at a veterinary school in Maisons-Alfort show a 95% success rate using sweat samples;

• Finland: Pilot study at the University of Helsinki, dogs were able to accurately distinguish urine samples from COVID-19 patients versus healthy individuals;

• USA: The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine is training scent-detecting dogs to notice differences in the saliva and urine.

In short dogs can detect COVID-19.

The issue is more: to what level and in what situations. A quick whiff of a passing passenger at the airport is far different than a dedicated sample in a test environment. For example, dogs can also smell malaria but in the field they are less than 70% accurate.

That said, as I have talked about previously, current antigen lab tests are also only about 70% effective (https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/post/thought-of-the-day-june-10-antigen-testing-limitations), and field tools, like thermal guns, are probably incorrect most of the time (https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/post/thought-of-the-day-may-27-use-of-a-useless-test). So the bar is still very low, meaning dogs are in with a chance.

Cheers

Cliff