On some level, Carol Glaser thought, the idea was almost too obvious not to work. For decades, localities and governments around the world have used dogs to sniff out illegal drugs, explosives, landmines, and missing persons—even for illnesses. Why not COVID?
After all, with up to 300 million Glaser recently told me that olfactory receptors, which is a dog’s ability to smell or sniff something, “are a hundred thousand times what we have.” “There’s an analogy I’ve seen: You can take a teaspoon of something and put it in a body of water the size of 20 Olympic-size swimming pools, and a dog can figure it out.”
It made for a great theory: dogs as a kind of detective agency on the front lines of COVID. But Glaser is not just a theorist.
As the medical officer for the Laboratory Science Center at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Glaser was able to advocate for both resources and funding (via CDC Foundation) to road test the idea. Although it is still early days, the results are promising enough that they may change the leverage of the United States against outbreaks of many viruses, not just the Covid virus, in the coming years.
And while the first tests were conducted in schools, Glaser and those working with her are now taking the process to where it can have the greatest impact: skilled nursing facilities in California, home to some of the state’s worst. Infection and mortality rates During the first two years of the coronavirus.
“There’s a huge need in our nursing homes,” Glaser says. Nursing homes and other skilled facilities continue to have outbreaks all the time — and, of course, they are the most vulnerable residents. We’re making a huge shift in nursing homes.”
Canines are calming to the population, and thus are welcome. They work quickly, needing only seconds to smell a person. and several In the first class Lab–based on studies Owns Shown Medical detection dogs are quite accurate at identifying samples from people with COVID, suggesting they could play a valuable role in screening mobile devices.
In short, they are good dogs.
The genesis of the project, the details of which recently emerged in a research letter published in JAMA PediatricsCDPH’s experience with antigen tests has been in the public school system. Although the program ultimately had strong endorsements, Glaser said the regulatory requirements required a lot of training for school staff, pulling teachers and administrators away from their core duties, and “kids were getting a little sick from those swabs.”
Enter the dogs. Glaser was already aware of reports that dogs were being tested for COVID at airports in the United States FinlandAnd Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab EmiratesThe same Sports facilities. I reached out to Carol Edwards, the Northern California-based regional executive Early warning canines (EAC), which more than 20 years ago trained “sugar alert” dogs to warn insulin-dependent diabetics when they were about to experience a large fluctuation in their blood sugar level.
Glaser wanted to see if Edwards could train dogs to detect COVID-19. “I said, sure. Let’s do it,” and then I panicked, Edwards says, laughing. “But it’s similar to scent training that diabetic alert dogs do. It was just a matter of getting COVID samples and training the dogs for that.”
The science involved is pretty straightforward. as a result of metabolic processes, infected people with COVID emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These gas molecules can have a unique scent, which dogs—in this case, yellow labs named Rizzo and Scarlett—perceive able to Distinguish – aware After rigorous training. “This is what dogs actually smell,” says Edwards, who co-authored the JAMA study. “They don’t smell the virus itself.”
Glaser at CDPH set out to collect worn-out socks from people with COVID, it’s best to preserve the VOCs that were collected there as a result of sweat formation. Then Edwards, at the EAC, taught the dogs to put socks on a scent detection wheel with which she trained Rizzo and Scarlet to distinguish compounds associated with Covid from other scents, and reward them with Cheerios or a small liver treat each time they do so — the same general regimen that dogs undergo as they learn to smell any given odor or substance.
It is certainly not a new technology. In addition to the above uses, “dogs have been found to be able to detect melanoma cells and other tumor types such as lung, ovary, bladder, and large intestine,” says Molly McAllister, MD, chief medical officer of Mars Veterinary Health, a global network of more than 2,500 hospitals. and a veterinary clinic. It can be used to differentiate between patients with malariaand he was also discovered to be able to detect it lack of blood sugarAnd impending seizures, And narcolepsy episodes. “
In the controlled setting of the laboratory, Rizzo and Scarlett’s results were excellentAnd With dogs you’ll get it 98%, 99% of the time. They find the positive socks and ignore everything else,” Glaser says. In a pilot program in live school settings with more than 3,500 performances last year, the overall accuracy numbers dropped to 90% With dogs, it correctly identified 85 infections and ruled out 3411 infections. They inaccurately indicated infection in 383 cases and missed 18 infections, yielding a sensitivity of 83% and a specificity of 90%.
Glaser suspected of declining performance The domain was partly due to a relatively chaotic environment, including things like wind, noise, and many other things. scents on participants, including a burrito in one of the kids’ backpacks. More study is needed to learn more about these factors and whether they can be mitigated as dogs become more familiar with their surroundings.
The process was decidedly old school. “We had the kids lined up outside for us, and the dogs would walk along and sniff their ankles,” says Edwards. “If they encountered VOCs they’d sit. To them, it was just another scent. They will get a reward.” All children and staff in the study also underwent a rapid antigen test for comparison purposes.
The advantages of a swab test are numerous, including saving time (dogs can smell hundreds of people in one hour), convenience, and the potential to reduce the number of swab test kits by 80% since the swabs would only be used as a follow-up for those who had been alerted by dogs as infected. And while dogs must be trained, fed and kept, they may be the most affordable protection against the virus yet.
There’s another consideration – and it’s particularly compelling when applied to a skilled nursing setting: residents enjoy interacting. The dogs have been in 10 to 12 nursing homes in Northern California so far, sometimes multiple times, and have been cuddled warmly, just as they were in the schools. “There are some people who are literally trying to track dogs around to videotape them, and they want the pictures,” Glaser says. She and Edwards have considered adding a third social dog who will “come after the other dogs have done their business,” only to be petted and played with to help streamline the process..
It seems like a feel-good development because it is — but the work at hand is serious. “I really think that’s the tip of the iceberg,” says Edwards. “We’re going into skilled nursing homes now because that’s where the outbreaks are.” The potential next step is also important: Seeing whether dogs can successfully identify two strains of influenza, another important cause of illness and death in nursing homes.
EdwardsAnd who have trained many canines to particularly detect scent, he is a cautious optimist. “I’ve seen sniffing dogs, seizing dogs… Dog noses are exceptional, and we just get the benefit of that. Whatever they smell, they always smell. We just make a purpose for it.”
Just as Edwards’ dogs sometimes alerted diabetic patients to a change in their sugar before it actually subsided, the hope is that dogs like Rizzo and Scarlett may eventually be able to fend off outbreaks of COVID or influenza viruses by quickly pinpointing their number of nursing home residents or The workers have an infection. For Glaser, the fact that dogs are charming is just a bonus. “We still have things to sort out, so I’m very careful, but I want people to take dogs seriously,” she says. “Most people say, ‘Aren’t they cute?’ “And that’s fine. I think they’re cute too — but I’m really trying to make sure we do it in the same way as any rigorous study.”
Carolyn Barber, MD He was an emergency department physician for 25 years. The author of the book Wild Medicine: What You Don’t Know May Kill Youhas written extensively about COVID-19 for national publications, including luck. Barber is the co-founder of the California Homeless Action Program wheels of change.
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