Dog’s sense of smell- sniff out coronavirus

Dogs are well known for their ‘sense of smell’. So these canine friends can help mankind with their smelling sense during this COVID-19 pandemic. Specially trained dogs can sniff out coronavirus in infected people in the United Kingdom; it is an ongoing trail work in British Research.         

The certain disease has the distinctive odour which is not detected by humans. But dogs have the capacity to sense this odour. Dogs are already used to detect a certain type of cancers like breast cancer, with a probability of 93%. Dogs are being used in the screening of certain worst diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and malaria.

Lead researcher Professor James Logan, Head of the Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that he was hopeful about using the dogs for detection of COVID-19. The previous successful project is Medical Detection dogs are trained to smell the distinctive odour of malaria.

If this COVID-19 screening using dogs get successful, then it will be used to screen a high number of people. Training of dogs in smelling the patients will increase the accuracy of detection.         

Dogs have the ability to differentiate the odour changes due to their effect on health conditions. So dogs can be used to find out COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic. Scientist under this project says that they are confident about the dog’s ability to smell the odour of the COVID patients. Even though dogs are tested positive for COVID-19, dogs are not much affected by the COVID-19 disease. So dogs can be employed to make the basic screening done to monitor a large number of people. The second screening for the virus is essential even though the dog’s sniffing is done. This will help mankind in the mere future to fight against the threatening pandemic of the world.

Click on other links of our dog’s website related to dogs and COVID-19 which is also be helpful for you to read is as follows:

1. How to keep your pets safe and happy during the coronavirus quarantine
2. Quarantine: time of isolation for pets like pup