A Florida university trains dogs to detect COVID-19

The dogs, trained by the International Institute for Forensic Research (IFRI) at Florida International University, have a maximum of one 90% accuracy. “COVID-19 produces unique smelling chemicals and also causes metabolic changes in those infected with the virus, resulting in smells that dogs can detect”explained IFRI director DeEtta Mills.

According to the experts, the training process started in the lab, where they learned to detect odors, and now they are ready to do their job in larger spaces such as auditoriums, computer labs and libraries.

How does it work? The moment one of these dogs detects the coronavirus, it sits on the spot, facing the contaminated or contaminated surface, to issue the warning. The success of this initiative could be a great solution to detect asymptomatically in public areas.

According to the university, the dogs will work on campus during the spring semester to try to control the spread of the coronavirus in the school, and starting next week, they will sweep the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. The method will also be used for large crowds, such as Miami Heat games. As detailed by CBS, the fans will be taken to a control area and the dogs will pass in front of them.

The COVID-19 detection team consists of two Belgian Malinois and two small rescue dogs.

The Florida initiative is not the only one, days ago France started using dogs to detect the coronavirus through perspiration. This French project, dubbed Cynocov, is based on the Nosais COVID-19 method, developed by Professor Dominique Grandjean of the Maisons-Alfort National Veterinary School (near Paris), which will enrich the immense olfactory library of the dog already in use for the detection of certain cancers. “Dogs can detect an average of 95% of positive COVID-19 cases,” says Professor Grandjean.

One of the members of the French team is Eliot, a Belgian Malinois who has been trained to track down criminals and missing persons, but who has been preparing for a month to track down the corona virus through human sweat.

Like Eliot, the Labrador Retriever Marvel and three other Malinois and German Shepherds, all members of the gendarmerie dog brigades and firefighters, train in their new ‘game’ of detecting a perspiration bandage taken under the armpits of positive people for 10 minutes for COVID -19 at the beginning of the infection.

For example, since January 4, sweat samples from the CHU have been delivered almost every day for the dogs, who have been trained in the training center that Ceva has installed at the head office in Libourne, near Bordeaux, to smell them.

“They detect organic degradation substances from the infection,” explains Pierre-Marie Borne, a reference at Ceva. At the signal “To the cone!”, The dogs go to work.

The idea of ​​French scientists is that the tool is mainly used to make a pre-selection of people suspected of being infected, to “specify the need for a confirmation test” (such as the nasopharyngeal RT-PCR), explains Dr. Pierre-Marie Borne. “If it is known that asymptomatic people will soon need to be detected in all kinds of spaces – schools, retirement homes or airports – these kinds of toolswill, in terms of acceptability and reactivity, facilitate the processEstimates Denis Malvy, head of the infectious and tropical diseases service at CHU Bordeaux.

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