Any breed could do it': dogs might be a Covid tester's best friend

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/any-breed-could-do-it-dogs-might-be-covid-testers-best-friend

Any breed could do it': dogs might be a Covid tester's best friend

Nicola Davis
Fri 25 Sep 2020 16.10 BSTLast modified on Fri 25 Sep 2020 18.59 BST

It is simple and pain-free, could be used to test for coronavirus in care homes, airports and schools, and might just be more realistic than the UK government’s £100bn “Operation Moonshoot” mass screening plan. Its name? Fido.

Around the world – from the UK to Finland, Spain, Brazil, Lebanon and Australia – teams of researchers are training dogs to sniff out Covid-19. And some say the idea of training hundreds of thousands of canine noses to check for coronavirus is not as far-fetched as it may sound.

How do dogs do it? At Finland’s Helsinki airport, where four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work in a state-funded pilot scheme, passengers dab their skin with a wipe, which is placed in a beaker next to others containing control scents. If the dog detects the virus – shown by yelping, pawing, or lying down – the passenger takes a free swab test to verify its verdict.

Speaking to the Guardian, scientists said any breed could in theory be trained – a process that takes between two and 10 weeks – raising the prospect of pet canines joining an army of Covid sniffers.

Prof Dominique Grandjean, of the national veterinary school of Alfort in France, who is leading a research team using bomb detection, cancer detection and search and rescue dogs, said the canines were not sniffing the virus itself but rather tell-tale volatile chemicals produced when the virus infects cells, and released by the body.

The chemicals should be produced whether or not an infected person has symptoms, and only if the virus is active – suggesting that unlike current lab techniques, dogs are unlikely to pick up “dead” virus, Grandjean said.

Results from Grandjean and his colleagues, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, show sweat samples from Covid patients were correctly identified by eight dogs at least 83% of the time, with some making a correct identification in 100% of the trials they underwent. The team say they have since validated their approach in three separate trials, although the results have yet to be published.

Another research project is under way in Germany, using saliva rather than sweat samples. In a pilot study using eight dogs and 1,012 samples, the animals correctly spotted Covid-positive samples 83% of the time on average, and correctly identified Covid-negative samples 96% of the time.
(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. Links to the French and German studies

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.132134v1.full

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-020-05281-3

[sandensea]

2. The nose knows

[Happyhippychick]

3. Once again, dogs prove to be the greatest beings on earth

[tavernier]

4. Reminds me of the time I was visiting my aunt in Latvia

and she snuck a bag of sausages into the side pocket of my luggage, after I had told her that it was illegal. They made it through Europe, but as I was picking up my suitcase in Detroit, six dogs on leashes came enthusiastically racing toward the luggage carousel. I explained the problem to the officers and I wasn’t fined, but sadly the tail wagging canine squad was denied the fragrant booty... all of those articles get destroyed, I was told.

[rurallib]

5. Is there danger to the dogs of getting Covid themselves?

I read about an earlier version of this in I believe NYC and the dog they used was very accurate, but has since died. The article did not say what the dog died of. Very easy then to speculate that it may have been covid.

IIRC correctly early on in China cats were reported to have the disease and I think dogs also.

Anybody know?

[crickets]

6. Yes, pets can get it. Zoo animals have also been known to get it as well.

How prevalent pet infections are is unclear, and in each case where a pet has died the death has been blamed on underlying conditions.

Exclusive: Buddy, first dog to test positive for COVID-19 in the U.S., has died
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/07/first-dog-to-test-positive-for-covid-in-us-dies/ Jul 29

The narrative for the coronavirus in animals, however, has so far been consistent and narrow: They are rarely affected. When they do get the virus, it’s almost always from an owner. They have mild symptoms. They usually recover.

In reality, little is known about how the virus affects the typical pet dog. [snip]

Twelve dogs and at least 10 cats have tested positive in the U.S. Lennon says few case details have been made available to researchers. “What are their signs? How long did they present? What are the blood work changes?” Lennon asks. (Researchers are scrambling to understand which animals the novel coronavirus—which is believed to have originated in bats—can infect.) [snip]

It seems that potentially helpful specific case information isn’t always shared among state veterinarians either. State veterinarians typically take the lead when a pet tests positive, and they report details up to the CDC and USDA. Casey Barton-Bahravesh, director of the CDC’s One Health Office in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, says she has a weekly call with state veterinarians to share what the CDC is learning about the virus in animals. It’s not clear, however, whether states are learning enough details of each other’s cases. When National Geographic contacted state veterinarians in the seven states where dogs have tested positive, several said that each state is focused on its own cases and communicating directly with the CDC and USDA. [snip]

Lennon says that based on research so far, people can feel fairly confident that healthy dogs and cats don’t pose a big risk of infection to humans or each other in most situations. The primary message from the CDC and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is similar: There is no evidence that animals play a significant role in the spread of the virus. Because of that, they do not recommend widespread testing of pets.

That doesn’t necessarily make sense to Rankin, who says that broader testing of pets would allow public health experts to say with more confidence that pets aren’t being infected on a broad scale (or playing a significant role in the spread off the virus). “We’ve sort of put the cart before the horse,” she says. “If we’re telling the world that prevalence [of animal cases] is low, then we have to look at high numbers."

The article is long, informative, and yet not very. Dogs can get COVID and do die from it. Because of this danger, even though it seems relatively low in healthy animals, I think training them to sniff it out is unethical, selfish, and revolting.


Another article discussing cats and pets in general, zoo animals, and wildlife populations:

Two New York cats tested positive for coronavirus. Here’s what you need to know about the virus and animals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/04/22/coronavirus-pets-cats-dogs/ Apr 22


eta, for what it's worth: COVID-19 and Animals
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html Aug24

[rurallib]

8. Thanks so much for the detailed answer

Sure seems like having dogs directly sniff bodily fluids is an invitation to problems for them.

[crickets]

9. Y'welcome. Sorry if I went a little overboard.

I adore my pets (as we all do) and while I still have my cats to keep me company, I lost my dog this year to old age. Admittedly, I might be a bit sensitive about the subject.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

7. for a minute there i was thinking about how great my mutt would be.

he not only has a great nose, his name is radar for a reason.
i am besieged by maskholes.
but no, not worth risking his awesome life. i need him around.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Probably why Trump doesn't like to be around dogs.