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Vancouver-area health officials train dog team to sniff out COVID-19

A health authority with a history of using dogs to help detect medical conditions has found a way to use its canine scent detection team to sniff out COVID-19.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has trained its team, called Canines for Care, to signal the scent of the disease.

The B.C. health authority said it was “no small feat” to train a team of dogs already able to detect the bacteria Clostridium difficile, also known as C. difficile, to notice a relatively new type of infection.

The process took the experienced team about six months to figure out.

Even finding the right dogs – two Labrador retrievers and one English springer spaniel – required a global approach. VCH said the team, which is partly funded by Health Canada’s restart program, worked with others around the world to find dogs with the right combination of genetics and potential.

“Every dog can sniff, but not every dog can work,” canine scent detection specialist Teresa Zuberg said in a news release issued by VCH on Thursday.

When the dogs, named Micro, Yoki and Finn, were selected, the team had to figure out how to get access to samples, and train the canines in a way that was safe for the pups and their handlers.

The process was explained by Dr. Marthe Charles, VCH’s head of division of medical microbiology and infection prevention and control.

“Working closely with the clinical teams, we have been able to collect COVID-19 saliva, breath and sweat samples from consenting patients across the diverse demographics found in our health region,” Charles said.

“Access to this array of samples has allowed for robust scent detection training. The scent samples are prepared in a way that removes the risk of transmission of active virus, protecting our team.”

In August, Micro, Yoki and Finn passed what VCH describes as a “rigorous validation process” from a third party.

According to VCH, the dog team is part of its strategy to “tackle COVID-19 prevention from every possible angle.”

The health authority was the first in the world to operationalize its C. difficile detecting dog program, and now plans to develop a dog training program to provide ongoing public health support.

Possible future applications of teams like the one at VCH include detection of COVID-19 at airports and on cruise ships.

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