New Discovery Shows That Dogs Can Sniff Malaria

Dogs are unarguably useful to humans, they have been found to be good companions, and are good for security and even better mental well being. But recently there is proof that they will add one more use to their already impressive list.

According to scientists in the UK and The Gambia, they have proof that dogs can sniff out malaria. Just like dogs used by security agencies, dogs have been trained to identify people infected with malaria using aroma of clothes from the infected.

With this new evidence, there is a possibility of dogs helping to stop the spread of malaria and eradicating it in the future.

Although this is a new discovery, experts say this may pave way for new ways of testing for malaria.
Research has shown that people infected with malaria have a distinct scent which draws mosquitoes that spread the disease. Now dogs have been trained to know the scent.

Using a study of 175 socks worn from children overnight, 30 were discovered to have been worn by children infected with the malaria parasite.

Dogs have been shown to indicate correctly seven out of 10 samples from infected children. Their ability to sniff out malaria is not 100percent accurate because they have incorrectly thought one in 10 children had the parasite.

There is still room for improvement so that the dogs will be used on humans and not socks and also discover if the dogs can identify different types of malaria.
The idea is to eradicate the disease by using the trained dogs at airports to check the spread of the disease.

A recent report on the disease that cases have increased from five million to 216 million cases a year.