Covid-19: Dogs in Italy being trained to sniff coronavirus

Rome - If successful, dogs could prove to be a faster and cheaper method of virus detection in crowd situations.

It was Harlock's first day at coronavirus training school and she already showed promise.

The one-year-old German Shepherd's task on Wednesday morning was simply to place her slightly wet nose on a black tube.

"Sniff," encouraged her trainer, Massimiliano Macera, who was quick to reward his furry student with treats whenever nose met tube.

"She's already got it!" he added, smiling at his protégé, part of a team of dogs learning how to sniff out Covid-19.

The project, which began 10 days ago at Rome's Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital, involves training dogs to detect the presence of coronavirus in human sweat.

If found to be reliable, it could prove a faster and cheaper method of detection in crowd situations, whether a football match or rock concert, say those working on the project.

"If we have 1,000 people we have to screen with an antigen swab, it would take us about 20 minutes for each person," said Massimo Ciccozzi, a professor of epidemiology at the university.

"A dog, using their olfactory senses, would take 30 seconds maximum."

Dogs, with their sensitive noses packed with receptors, are increasingly being used to detect human diseases, including cancer, diabetes or Parkinson's.

Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, researchers in countries around the world including Finland, Germany, France and the United Arab Emirates have launched sniffer dog trials.

But some scientists believe such testing has not yet been widely adopted by authorities in part because of a lack of peer-reviewed literature.

Work is play

Macera's company SecurityDogs has six pups in the programme, among them Roma. The four-year-old Dutch Shepherd was outfitted in her uniform, a turquoise and black harness proclaiming the dog's Covid-fighting role.

"The first part of the dog training is getting them to recognise the volatile organic compounds that characterise the Covid disease," said Silvia Angeletti, the hospital's lab director.