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Dogs are the superheroes we do not deserve. They look amazing in capes, can analyze human speech and can even read your mood. They might also be able to detect malaria.
In the United Kingdom, a group of researchers trained dogs for the detection of malaria in infected persons but with no fever or physical symptoms. They presented the results this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans.
Malaria is a global problem. Despite funding of $ 2.7 billion to eradicate the disease, malaria still infected 216 million people and killed 445,000 worldwide in 2016, according to the World Health Organization. Some countries have been successful – Sri Lanka, for example, declared itself malaria-free the same year – but others, such as South Africa, have gone beyond WHO's goal of eliminating malaria. malaria in this country by 2020.
James Logan, Head of the Department of Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, participated in both studies. Logan and colleagues found that people infected with the malaria parasite, even if they had no symptoms of the disease, had a distinct scent of aldehyde compounds. Mosquitoes love this smell and go looking for the person who puts this funk in the world. If mosquitoes can find these compounds, Logan and his colleagues wonder if dogs could do the same.
This is not a totally crazy idea: dogs are known for their sense of smell and specially trained puppets can detect cancer. Dog sniffers could be faster and less invasive than current diagnostic tests, says Logan, which involves taking blood samples and analyzing them with the help of special equipment. And if dogs could detect the odor on people with no symptoms of malaria, it would be possible to prevent these people from spreading malaria without knowing it.
For this "proof of concept" study, as Logan calls it, experts from the University of Durham in the UK, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine UK and The Gambia, as well as a charity called Medical Detection Dogs Project through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. .
The Logan team collected socks worn for 12 to 24 hours by children in The Gambia. Some had no malaria infection while others were infected but showed no symptoms. The scientists brought the socks back to the U K and froze them by forming two dogs with the smell of malaria. Several months of training later, the dogs correctly identified 70% of children infected with malaria and 90% of children without malaria, who did not smell the smell of their socks.
"We were really surprised at the quality of its operation," said Logan. "We knew that dogs could smell cancer and we thought it should work … but it's a very difficult test."
With only two dogs in the study, this research is not ready for widespread use, explains Logan. Then, they hope to train more dogs to carry out detection tests on real and living human beings. Logan says they also plan to see if dogs can learn to identify different types of malaria in different parts of the world, or if their abilities are limited to identifying generic malaria infections. They also plan to study whether they can use dogs as a guide to developing an electronic "nose" to detect infections, says Logan.
Tovi Lehmann, who studies on behalf of the National Institutes of Health for the spread of mosquitoes and parasites around the world, has also trained dogs in search of places where mosquitoes could be hiding in dormancy. According to his experience, dogs improve as they work on something, so their performance could improve longer than they detect malaria, he says. It also highlights the importance of teamwork between the dog and the trainer.
But, he says, training detection dogs is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process that could ultimately limit the usefulness of malaria detection dogs.
One possible use of these smart doggos could be at airports, at borders or at other points of entry into countries or areas considered to be almost free of malaria, Logan said. The deployment of these puppies could prevent reintroduction of the disease or help eliminate it completely. Give a dog a job, and they could perhaps help change the world – and look great while doing it.
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