Patron of Medical Detection Dogs (MDD), HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, saw the dogs being put through their paces and learned more about the trial at MDD's training centre near Milton Keynes. If successful, the specially-trained dogs could be used as a new rapid, non-invasive testing measure for COVID-19.
Before the dogs can put their noses to work, the research team need the public's help donating odour samples. Anyone in England who has mild COVID-19 symptoms, and is due to have a swab test, or has had a swab test conducted in the past 24 hours, can provide samples of breath and body odour by wearing a mask for three hours, and nylon socks and a t-shirt for twelve hours.
Once the samples have been collected, they are taken to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine for analysis to identify compounds in odour that signify when someone is infected with COVID-19.
The samples are then sent to Medical Detection Dogs where six dogs will undergo training to identify the virus from the samples.
The Duchess was able to see the dogs sniffing out some of the first odour samples of COVID-19 collected by the team, but more samples are still needed. The researchers are aiming to collect 325 positive and 675 negative samples in order to confidently ascertain if these dogs can accurately detect the disease.
