Job of sniffing out COVID cases given to canine recruits

Sniffer dogs could be employed in the fight against COVID by detecting infected people at airports if a government trial proves successful.

Colleen Eiser has been training dogs for Biosecurity Australia for six years and says the hounds could detect the virus through human body odour. 

“When the dogs are out searching, they aren’t coming into direct contact with people, they’re actually sniffing sweat samples and indicating the difference in how the sweat smells when someone is infected with COVID-19,” she said.

“What we’re doing is a process built on the research of other detection dog groups that train dogs to find people infected with malaria. 

Three dogs usually tasked with detecting agricultural pests in luggage at airports were used in the clinical study, said Ms Eiser, the national technical manager of detector dogs.  

“The dogs were mostly provided by the Australian Border Force, but worldwide there are hundreds of dogs [being studied as COVID detectors],” she said.

“We’ve got good results in the controlled clinical environment and there is currently work being undertaken to see how that will transition into an operational environment.”

Ms Eiser says there is potential for the sniffer dogs to be used as a “supporting screening mechanism” along with nasal swab tests.

Sniffing out pests

But using dogs to detect biosecurity threats is nothing new. 

Ms Eiser said the Commonwealth began hiring hounds in 1992 to detect agricultural and biosecurity pests.

“We currently intercept lots of meat as a response to African Swine Fever (ASF) and also a lot of citrus, which prevents citrus canker from coming in.

“The only other training for specific pests and disease is the trial we’re conducting on brown marmorated stink bug.”

Brown marmorated stink bugs feed on more than 300 agricultural and ornamental plants species.

If the insect becomes established in Australia it will be extremely difficult and expensive to manage as it is not easily controlled with pesticides. 

“It’s a pretty nasty bug,” Ms Eiser said. 

“It’s a big risk for our horticultural industry and it’s one that can arrive in the country by hitchhiking on imported cargo, including suitcases.”

The detector dogs will sit down and look at an individual or luggage to indicate the presence of pests or diseases, Ms Eiser said. 

The government would hire and train a new workforce of COVID detector dogs, assuming the operational trials were successful. 

“We retire our dogs at around eight years of age. They’ve done a very good and long service for the department by then and they deserve a well-earned retirement.”