Opinion | Sniffing out the coronavirus: how dogs are helping in the fight against Covid-19

These detector dogs are trained using sweat samples from people infected with Covid-19

When introduced to a line of sweat samples, most canines can detect a positive one from a line of negative ones with 100 per cent accuracy

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A Covid-19 detector dog sniffs for a sample in Santiago, Chile. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00am, 6 Aug 2020Updated: 7:05am, 6 Aug 2020

What does a pandemic smell like? If dogs could talk, they might be able to tell us.

We’re part of an international research team, led by Dominique Grandjean at France’s National Veterinary School of Alfort, that has been training detector dogs to sniff out traces of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since March.

These detector dogs are trained using sweat samples from people infected with Covid-19. When introduced to a line of sweat samples, most dogs can detect a positive one from a line of negative ones with 100 per cent accuracy.

Across the globe, coronavirus detector dogs are being trained in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Belgium.

In the UAE, detector dogs – stationed at various airports – have already started helping efforts to control Covid-19’s spread. This is something we hope will soon be available in Australia too.

A keen nose

Our international colleagues found detector dogs were able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in infected people when they were still asymptomatic, before later testing positive.