Home Crime Watch Trials to see if dogs can detect COVID-19 begins

Trials to see if dogs can detect COVID-19 begins

by Inclusive News Network

A UK trial to see whether specialist medical sniffer dogs can detect Coronavirus in humans is set to begin.

The dogs are already trained to detect odours of certain Cancers, Malaria and Parkinson’s disease by the charity Medical Detection Dogs.

According to the BBC, the first phase of the trial will be led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, along with the charity and Durham University.

It has been backed with £500,000 of government funding.

Innovation minister Lord Bethell said he hoped the dogs could provide “speedy results” as part of the government’s wider testing strategy.

The trial will explore whether the “Covid dogs” – made up of Labradors and Cocker spaniels – can spot the virus in humans from odour samples before symptoms appear.

It will establish whether so-called bio-detection dogs, which could each screen up to 250 people per hour, could be used as a new early warning measure to detect COVID-19 in the future.

The charity said the training could take as little as six to eight weeks.

After an initial trial phase of three months, the government will decide where it believes the dogs will be most useful.

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