Smell is the most developed sense in dogs. In recent months, sniffer dogs have been trained to detect Covid-19. Today, experimentation is accelerating and even becoming official.
Sniffer dogs detect Covid-19
It is a project that could take on a large scale in the coming weeks. He started a year ago at the Maisons-Alfort veterinary school, in Val-de-Marne. Its original purpose was to prove the ability of sniffer dogs to detect the virus, using their sense of smell. On February 17, Valérie Pécresse, the President of the Ile-de-France region, went there to meet the teams responsible for the Nosaïs-Covid19 study, attend a demonstration and participate in the official launch of the project. Many employees are involved, including the Regional Health Agency and the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris. The latter is also carrying out an evaluation to find out whether the screening of olfactory molecules in sweat is more sensitive than the PCR screening. The Nosaïs project can also count on the support of the French Red Cross, Île-de-France Prévention Santé Sida and the departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS).
What methodology?
To obtain results, 2,000 samples will be analyzed. They will come from staff and students. They will then have to undergo three different types of screening tests, including a nasopharyngeal swab and a saliva test. For the scent test intended for dogs, the teams place a compress under the person’s armpit, in order to collect sweat. The compresses are then placed in aligned olfaction cones. The dog, previously trained and trained to detect Sars-Cov-2, sniffs each cone and sits in front of a positive sample, which it detects in less than 60 seconds. Immediately he is rewarded by his master. The experiment will last between two and four weeks. If it proves to be effective, the goal is to receive ” validation of this technique by health authorities “.
Soon democratized?
Indeed, this new means of screening for Covid-19 by sniffer dogs could become complementary to other tests, in particular in airports and universities. As the President of Ile-de-France described it, “ we start from a very beautiful intuition […] we now move on to medical certainty “. And to add: “ If it works, it would lighten the testing procedures considerably […] that would be really revolutionary “. In addition, Professor Grandjean, director of the study, wishes to go further by training dogs to recognize the smell of the virus directly on the mask.
