Dogs that save lives
Are dogs on the way to becoming real medical auxiliaries? In any case, various studies lead us to believe it, such as that carried out by the Kdog project since 2009 on the subject of the early detection of breast cancer and more recently by the tests carried out on the detection of malaria by the smell of dogs.
The tests were carried out by Medical Detection Dogs, a charity based in England, with two dogs, Lexi, a Labrador and Golden Retriever mix and Sally, a Labrador, specially trained to detect "the smell malaria" in people infected with the parasite but who do not yet show symptoms of the disease.
Review of the experience
The test involved wearing nylon socks overnight to a sample of children living in the Upper River region of The Gambia, an endemic area for mosquitoes that carry the Plasmodium falciparum parasite responsible for malaria, to impregnate them with their body odor.
All these children were apparently he althy but potentially infected with the parasite. In order to determine this, samples of their blood were taken to be frozen and then sent to the United Kingdom for analysis in order to detect the presence of the parasite there.
Thus, when dogs were made to smell the socks worn by the children, the latter managed to correctly identify 70% of the samples from children infected with malaria and 90% of the samples from children without malaria. parasite.
70% success rate: a more than promising result
This test, the results of which were disclosed on October 29, 2018 at the annual conference of the American Society of Tropical Medicine in New Orleans (Louisiana), is very promising to finally succeed in stemming the disease which affects 216 million people per year and was still responsible for 445,000 deaths in 2016.
Indeed, malaria is unique in that people infected with the parasite, but who are not known to be infected because they do not yet show any symptoms, constitute a reservoir of the parasite for mosquitoes which are its true vector. It is therefore not enough to eradicate mosquitoes (which will always come back) but also to treat all those people who are he althy carriers.
By detecting infected people by non-invasive (without blood test) and inexpensive means such as dog sniffing, we are taking a big step in preventing the spread of malaria.Trained dogs could thus be used at the entry points of countries which have eradicated the disease or which are about to do so, or during a campaign to treat a village affected by the parasite. Asymptomatic people carrying the parasite will thus be able to receive treatment and will no longer allow the mosquitoes that bite them to go and infect other people.
Further studies and further validation will be necessary before these discoveries can be applied on a large scale.