Recognize viruses with a superior sense of smell
Enter 2023.08.17 08:27 Hits 23 Enter 2023.08.17 08:27 Hits 23 were found to have an excellent ability to detect COVID-19. [사진=게티이미지뱅크]
A study has found that dogs may be more effective than gene amplification (PCR) tests in detecting the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19).
A research team from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and BioScent analyzed four research papers and 29 peer-reviewed studies involving 400 scientists from 30 countries and 31,000 samples over the past two years.
The results showed that dogs were as effective as standard reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests deployed in hospitals and clinics at detecting the virus. Dogs in particular have been found to be able to identify coronas masked by cold and flu viruses.
This canine detection ability is due to highly evolved noses that are physically and neurally optimized for odors. While humans have 5 to 6 million olfactory receptors, dogs have hundreds of millions. In humans, only 5% of the brain focuses on smell, but in dogs, one-third of the brain is used to analyze smells.
“A dog can detect a single drop of odorous substance in 10.5 swimming pools the size of an Olympic stadium,” Tommy Dickey Bixar, UCSB professor emeritus (geography) of the research team, told Healthday. “This is done using scientific tools. It’s about three times better than what we do,” he said.
“Some studies have shown that dogs can detect pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic coronas that have too little virus to show up on standard tests,” he said. “One researcher said that ‘RT-PCR testing is no longer the gold standard’.” added.
Dogs, in particular, were faster at detection. If you smell it yourself, you can answer “yes” or “no” within seconds. A trained dog can indicate that it smells like corona by actions such as sitting down. It takes a little longer when using something like a human sweat sample rather than smelling it yourself.
“By harnessing the dog’s ability to rapidly detect viruses, we can quickly provide information that can help slow the spread of disease,” the research team explained.
The research team picked beagles, basset hounds, and coonhounds as ideal breeds for detection. “However, dogs of other breeds can do the job of detecting corona with just a few weeks of training,” the research team added.
The results of this study (COVID-19 scent dog research highlights and synthesis during the pandemic of December 2019−April 2023) were published in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.
2023-08-16 23:27:06
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