These dogs are to be trained to sniff out the coronavirus and, if the world-leading project is a success, they could screen 750 people an hour.
Medical detection dogs have already been trained to detect diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and malaria. The Covid-19 project, the only one of its kind in the world, is a collaboration between the Medical Detection Dogs charity, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University.
Professor James Logan, Head of the Department of Disease Control at the LSHTM, said: “It’s exciting because the project could move at speed as there are six dogs ready to be trained.” Within the next few weeks, the dogs will receive samples of fabric worn by coronavirus patients to see if