Researchers at the US University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine are hoping a new study will help sniff out carriers of Covid-19.
Scent detection dogs will attempt to tell the difference between lab samples from positive and negative patients.
Dogs have 300 million smell receptors which uniquely positions the animals to aid in disease detection. By comparison, humans have only six million smell receptors.
Over the course of three weeks, eight scent detection dogs will be trained using coronavirus positive saliva and urine samples. Once it is determined a dog can tell the difference in a lab setting, the study will use infected people.
The university is hopeful the scent detection dogs will be able to identify the virus in asymptomatic carriers.
Cynthia Otto, heading the study, said: "The potential impact of these dogs and their capacity to detect COVID-19 could be substantial.
“This study will harness the dog’s extraordinary ability to support Covid-19 surveillance systems, with the goal of reducing community spread.”
