Great Britain - Research proves them all. Even dogs against coronavirus?

While waiting for science to find the necessary drugs and vaccines, dogs, adequately trained, could slow down the spread of coronavirus, confirming themselves - once again - the best friends of man. This is not a theoretical hypothesis, but a thesis on which a group of British researchers is already working, convinced that dogs, in the near future, will not only be able to recognize the coronavirus through their sense of smell, but also to identify individuals infected. A double capacity - the assumption on which the Medical Detection Dogs study center is working, in collaboration with the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and with the University of Durham - which will hopefully have some effect on the spread epidemic. The three universities - reads a joint note - "have begun preparations for the intensive training of dogs so that they are ready within six weeks, to provide a rapid and non-invasive diagnosis". The researchers' optimism is justified by the results already obtained by some animals that have learned to detect other diseases in the past, such as cancer, Parkinson's disease or bacterial infections.
The training will be based on smelling viral samples, teaching them how to report their presence. And since dogs are also capable of capturing changes in human body temperature, they could be deployed in public spaces to try to identify infected travelers.
"In the beginning, we are sure that dogs can detect Covid-19 - said Claire Guest, director of Medical Detection Dogs -. Now we are studying how we can capture 'the smell of the virus' safely from patients, to present it later to dogs. " According to Steve Lindsay, a professor at Durham, "if the research is successful, dogs could be used to detect coronavirus at airports." And maybe to contribute in the near future to "prevent a return epidemic".