The fight against the new coronavirus is about to get new allies. Medical Detection Dogs, a non-profit organization from the United Kingdom, will start to train sniffing dogs to identify people who have covid-19. The organization believes that dogs can develop the skill to detect the virus through smell, even before symptoms show up.”We know that other respiratory diseases change our body odour, so there is a very high chance that dogs will be able to detect this virus,” said professor James Logan, Head of the Department of Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Mail.The first tests will take place with volunteers at the University of Durham, in England, and at LSHTM. If it is successful, the initiative will help diagnose patients throughout the United Kingdom.

Disease sniffers

Since 1989, dogs have been used to sniff out several types of cancer. They are also able to detect malaria and Parkinson’s disease (one of the symptoms are tremors). This happens because dogs’ sense of smell is 10 thousand times more sensitive than that of humans, which makes them able to identify small changes in body odour caused by diseases – and that we do not notice.

Sources: BBC, Daily Mail, Metrópoles, and UOL

Questions
1) How will dogs identify the new coronavirus?

a) Using their instinct
b) Through visual contact with human beings
c) Through the sensitivity of their sense of smell
d) Through touch

2) Do you think detection dogs should be used all over the world? Why?

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