General, Research, Technology

Can dogs detect coronavirus by smell?

While some scientists are developing vaccines againstspanning the entire world of coronavirus, others are developing completely different and sometimes even amazing ways to detect and treat COVID-19. One of these methods aimed at getting rid of the coronavirus already fed up with everything can be a sensitive scent of dogs, which, as you know, have long helped a person identify a potential threat to life. Having successfully found both explosives and symptoms of poor health, some dog breeds may be able to detect patients with coronavirus infection. Let's get it right.

Spaniel - a hunting breed of dog

What a dog’s nose is capable of

When coronavirus first appeared in Chinesein Wuhan at the end of 2019, no one expected that in a couple of months the disease would cause a pandemic and take many lives. In order to learn how to identify carriers of COVID-19, scientists want to use specially trained dogs for this. Although at first glance this idea doesn’t sound too serious, there is evidence that scientists have previously managed to teach springer spaniels detect malaria and some other dangerous diseases.

Interesting fact: The smell of a dog is 40 times stronger than that of a person. However, some scientists believe that this figure may be underestimated.

Dogs have many advantages overby man. So, thanks to their sharp scent, we can have a good chance to escape from the coronavirus threatening the entire planet. But in what way?

This is what a typical spaniel dog looks like.

It is known that the delicate scent of dogs is due tolarge and thickened olfactory bulbs, whose sizes are 4 times larger than human ones. A special method of sniffing, which is frequent and short breaths, helps animals accumulate flavored molecules and find their source. Such a hypersensitive system is capable of sensing not only various chemical and explosive substances, but even cancerous diseases, Parkinson's disease and some other human diseases, Newatlas.com claims.

Dogs feel the slightest fluctuations in the temperature of the human body.

In order to create a new way to identifya dangerous disease, scientists from England are developing methods for training dogs to detect COVID-19. Previously, a group of researchers have already managed to train a dog of the breed Spaniel to detect smell malaria from samples of socks that were previously wornsick children. Moreover, it should be noted that dogs identify an infected child with special accuracy. In the future, in such an unusual way, it is planned to conduct inspections at customs to prevent the spread of malaria infection outside of disadvantaged countries.

Malaria - An infectious disease transmitted to humans through mosquito bites of the Anopheles species. The disease is accompanied by fever, chills, an increase in the size of the spleen and liver.

How a dog helps

As mentioned above, some respiratorydiseases can affect our body odor. Among these diseases is the well-known coronavirus infection, whose detection method can be similar to other infectious diseases. If so, then dogs will also be able to learn to detect it, based only on the smell of our skin. Dog handlers involved in dog training are convinced of the positive result of such an unusual technique, believing that it will not be difficult for their wards to identify the patient. The training of new “COVID-19 detection specialists” should take a very short time. If the accountants still manage to train the spaniels to identify the sick, then this will help to diagnose the coronavirus as soon as possible, which means that it is faster to isolate and begin treatment of the sick.

While scientists are looking for ways to identify and treat coronavirus, almost all of Russia sits home. About why quarantine is considered the best way to combat COVID-19, read this article.

According to some estimates, trained dogscan check up to 250 people per hour, which indicates a good speed of their work without compromising the accuracy of the result. In addition, the effectiveness and speed of testing with dogs can be even more accurate than with the currently available COVID-19 tests.

Earlier in Hi-News.ru we already wrote about the main symptoms of coronavirus. In order to learn how to correctly determine your condition without confusing it with SARS and influenza, we recommend that you read this article.