Back in those halycon pre-Covid-19 days Banbury Rotary used to have what we called “5th Friday Meetings” in which included members partners could accompany them for an evening meal and a talk. One memorable talk was given by the charity “Medical Detection dogs.
If I recall correctly they could be trained for two rather different roles:
- diagnosis of a disease in a patient alerting medics to the presence of the condition – e.g. prostate cancer
- management of diseases – alerting the patient to the need to amend their medication dosage – e.g. diabetes
So – you may be interested to hear that the canine nose is now being investigated as a potential sniffer of Covid-19.
No swabs or needles or 2+ day waits for the results: just a friendly dog basically giving an immediate “Yes” or “No” response.
Obviously it’s early days to know whether Covid-19 induces a change in odour of humans that dogs can detect but we certainly wish them well in their efforts.
Click below to see the page on the Medical Detection Dogs site.
