The best friend of the man against malaria

Freya, an energetic springer spaniel with a very sensitive nose, is quick to find the sock of a child infected with malaria.

Freya's ability to detect this deadly disease is tested in a completely white room. His carriage is hidden behind an opaque glbad. At her signal, Freya crosses the floor of the laboratory and sniffs a collection of open jars. Each contains a sock worn by a small child in Ghana for one night. In less than 10 seconds, Freya stops sniffing and sits in front of a pot, which means that she has detected something

In a new study released Monday, University researchers from Durham, England, claim that Freya can detect malaria with 70% accuracy.

The fight against malaria has been long and fraught with obstacles. According to the most recent statistics from the World Health Organization, more than 400,000 people died of mosquito-borne disease in 2015. Slowly but surely, the world has made progress against the disease. Since 2010, malaria mortality rates have decreased by 29%, according to WHO. And recently, Paraguay has been certified free of malaria.

And this is where Freya could play an important role. Lead investigator, Steve Lindsay, said he had had the idea of ​​training dogs to detect malaria after a visit abroad, when he had seen dogs sniff all kinds of contraband products.

"People with malaria smell good." Different, "said Lindsay at Voice of America, he then thought, why not study if dogs can detect small traces of the disease?

Lindsay envisions a future in which trained dogs help staff Medical detect infected travelers at US entry points.Another potential application would be for countries on the verge of eliminating the disease.

Freya was formed by a non-profit group called Medical Detection Dogs. Lindsay points out that dogs are already used to detect diseases such as "cancer, Parkinson's disease and that dogs like Freya can detect many other infectious diseases." He warns that research is still in its infancy, but

Another question: if dogs can do it, can we build a nose that makes it better? Lindsay says the detector detecting dogs team I'm working with the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop what he calls an electronic nose.

If research continues to yield positive results, dogs could in the future detect various diseases, in addition to drugs and contraband.