As some states move to reopen after weeks of shutdowns, infectious disease experts say the prevention of future coronavirus outbreaks will require scaling up testing and identifying asymptomatic carriers.
Eight Labrador retrievers — and their powerful noses — have been enlisted to help.
The dogs are the first trainees in a University of Pennsylvania research project to determine whether canines can detect an odor associated with the virus that causes the disease covid-19. If so, they might eventually be used in a sort of “canine surveillance” corps, the university said — offering a noninvasive, four-legged method to screen people in airports, businesses or hospitals.
It would not be surprising if the dogs prove adept at detecting SARS-CoV-2. In addition to drugs, explosives and contraband food items, dogs are able to sniff out malaria, cancers and even a bacterium ravaging Florida’s citrus groves. Research has found viruses have specific odors, said Cynthia M. Otto, director of the Working Dog Center at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
“We don’t know that this will be the odor of the virus, per se, or the response to the virus, or a combination,” said Otto, who is leading the project. “But the dogs don’t care what the odor is. … What they learn is that there’s something different about this sample than there is about that sample.”
A similar effort is underway at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where researchers previously demonstrated that dogs could identify malaria infections in humans. In a statement, James Logan, head of the school’s disease control department, called canines a “new diagnostic tool” that “could revolutionize our response to covid-19…”
To read the entire article from The Washington Post, click https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/04/29/coronavirus-detection-dogs/
