Belgian shepherd dogs trained to sniff out coronavirus score top marks in armpit odour tests
- Eight Malinois achieve 83 to 100 per cent success rate in experiments by French researchers
- Dogs’ diagnoses even lead to two ‘healthy’ subjects being retested and found positive for the pathogen
The researchers, from the National Veterinary School in Alfort, challenged eight Belgian Malinois shepherd dogs to identify coronavirus patients from odour samples taken from the armpits of more than 360 subjects, both healthy and suffering from Covid-19.
The dogs’ success rate varied from 83 to 100 per cent, according to a paper published on Friday on Biorxiv.org, a preprint website that carries studies that have not been peer-reviewed.
“We conclude that there is strong evidence that dogs can detect a person infected by the virus responsible for Covid-19 disease,” said professor Dominique Grandjean, who was part of the research team.
According to Science magazine, a dog’s nose is about 100 million times more sensitive than a human’s and previous studies have shown their ability to sniff out a variety of diseases, including diabetes and some cancers.
Grandjean’s team selected the dogs from emergency services departments in Paris and Corsica, and from a dog training centre in Beirut, Lebanon. All of the animals had previously been trained for work in search and rescue missions, detecting explosives or sniffing out colon cancer.