DOGS CAN SNIFF OUT MALARIA
TAMPA, FLORIDA— Dogs can be trained to sniff out certain cancers, people at risk of a diabetic coma and now, children with malaria just by smelling their socks, researchers said on Monday.
According to the findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, dogs were trained to sniff out malaria parasites in
Our results show that sniffer dogs could be a serious way of making diagnosis of people who don’t show any symptoms, but are still infectious, quicker and easier James Logan Head of the department of disease control
African children who tested positive for the mosquito-borne disease but did not have a fever or other outward symptoms.
Malaria, which kills some 445,000 people worldwide each year, is caused by parasites that are transmitted by infected mosquitoes.
New tools needed
Cases of malaria are on the rise, globally. The World Health Organization said there were 216 million cases of malaria in 2016, up 5 million over a year earlier.
“Worryingly, our progress on the control of malaria has stalled in recent years, so we desperately need innovative new tools to help in the fight against malaria,” said coauthor James Logan, head of the department of disease control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“Our results show that sniffer dogs could be a serious way of making diagnosis of people who don’t show any symptoms, but are still infectious, quicker and easier,” Logan added..
A total of 175 sock samples were tested, including 30 from malaria-positive children and 145 from uninfected children.
Dogs were able to correctly identify 70 percent of the malaria-infected samples.
The canines were also able to identify 90 percent of the samples without malaria parasites.
Degree of accuracy
Steve Lindsay, a professor in the department of biosciences at Durham University, said this showed a “credible degree of accuracy.”
Researchers believe the odor given off by the malaria parasite is attracting the mosquitoes that spread the disease.
It’s this same odor the dogs are likely to be smelling, Lindsay said.
It’s still early days for the research, and much larger trials are planned to see if dogs can directly sniff out malaria in people.
“If you actually had people carrying malaria parasites, they’d probably have a really big odor signal,” Lindsay said.
Sniffing out cancer in urine
Experts are hopeful that the findings could lead to a noninvasive way of screening for malaria at ports of entry in a similar way to how sniffer dogs are routinely used to detect fruit and vegeta- bles or drugs at airports.
“This could help prevent the spread of malaria to countries that have been declared malaria-free and also ensure that people, many of whom might be unaware that they are infected with the malaria parasite, receive antimalarial drug treatment for the disease,” he added.
The extreme sensitivity of dogs in detecting odors is being recognized in efforts to combat other diseases, and health authorities in Britain have approved trials to train them to sniff out prostate and bowel cancer in urine.