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Kettering General Hospital staff are playing a vital role in a major national trial to see if bio-detection dogs can sniff out coronavirus in humans.

The trial is being led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in collaboration with the charity Medical Detection Dogs and Durham University with the first phase funded by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).

It will determine whether dogs could be used as a new rapid, non-invasive diagnostic tool for the virus.

Staff from Kettering General Hospital – and 17 other hospitals across the country (at August 2020) - are helping the trial by collecting samples from volunteer NHS staff who are due to be tested for COVID-19.

The hospital has signed up more than 100 staff for the trial making it the top recruiting Trust in the country so far.

Kettering General Hospital’s Research Lead Nurse, Joanne Walsh, said: “We are very excited and honoured to be taking part in this amazing clinical trial which could have huge implications for managing Covid-19 worldwide.

“Our contribution involves recruiting staff volunteers from colleagues who are about to have a Covid-19 swab test.

“After having their swab test we ask them to wear special nylon socks for 12 hours and a mask for three hours and then to bag these up and return them to us.

“We then send the samples – along with whether the person has tested positive or negative for Covid-19 – to the team who are doing the research with the dogs in Milton Keynes.

“The dogs are trained to sniff the samples and indicate whether they are positive or negative. This can then be compared with the actual test results on the person to see if the dog was right.”

Staff members are tested if they have experienced Covid-19 symptoms or as part of the hospital’s regular asymptomatic testing policy.

Nationally the aim is to recruit at least 3,500 staff members to provide samples, with a target of collecting 1,000 samples – 325 positive and 675 negative – in order to confidently ascertain if these dogs can accurately detect the disease.

Project lead Professor James Logan, Head of the Department of Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “A huge thank you to NHS staff and their families who are supporting this vital research.

“If successful, this trial could revolutionise how we diagnose the virus, leading to the rapid screening of high numbers of people, even if asymptomatic, helping return our lives back to some sort of normality.”

Claire Guest, CEO and Co-Founder of Medical Detection Dogs, said: “Samples provided by NHS staff and their families will be key to the success of this trial and we’re very grateful to everyone who is supporting the project in this way.

“Our dogs have already successfully detected different types of cancer, Parkinson’s and malaria among other diseases which affect millions of people around the world. We are very proud that a dog’s nose could be part of a solution to find a fast, non-invasive way of diagnosing COVID-19 and make a tangible difference to any future pandemics. We look forward to sharing the news that the dogs can find the odour of the virus and the accuracy levels they achieve.”

Professor Steve Lindsay, from the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, said: “If we can show that our trained dogs can identify people carrying the virus, but who are not sick, it will be a game changer. We will then be able to scale-up the use of dogs at ports of entry to identify travellers entering the country with the virus. This could be very important to help prevent a second wave of the epidemic.” 

Why hospital staff are volunteering

Sheila Brett is a bowel screening administrator in KGH’s endoscopy department. She has worked for the Trust for 25 years and volunteered for the trial at the first opportunity.

She said: “The reason I wanted to take part was because I lost my father to Covid-19 in April and my aunt in May. I have also seen my colleagues catching the illness.

“I think it is very important that we find ways of detecting the virus as quickly and easily, and as early, as possible. In this way we can all start to get our lives back to some sort of normal and resume things that we all look forward to, like holidays.”

Finance Analyst Wendy Thorpe said: “Members of my family, including my father, sister, brother-in-law and mother-in-law, all have medical conditions which make them very vulnerable to Covid-19.

“So I was very keen to do absolutely anything I could to help in the fight against it.  If this works and dogs are able to detect  the virus early on it could save many lives and prevent the spread of this terrible illness.”

Ophthalmic Deputy Sisters Heather Hart and Sarah Jones both volunteered for the trial. Sarah said: “During coronavirus 80% of our ophthalmic team were re-deployed to other parts of the hospital, including front-line wards and intensive care.

“We have seen how terrible this disease can be and want to do our part in the fight against it.”

Heather added: “Like everyone we just want to help get things back to normal and this will be hopefully one way we can help that to happen by being able to detect coronavirus very quickly and easily.”

Dr George Tsaknis is a Respiratory Consultant at KGH and Principal Investigator (Lead Doctor) for the trial at the hospital.

He said: “We are proud to be the top recruiting NHS Trust in the country for this trial, which is led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“I need to give huge credit to our fantastic hard-working research nurses and research staff, and of course our volunteers from the Trust.”

What happens after the samples are taken?

Once the samples have been collected, they are taken to LSHTM, where they are being processed and analysed to identify compounds in odour that signify when someone is infected with COVID-19.

They are then sent to MDD’s training centre in Milton Keynes where the dogs will undergo training with the samples.

Having previously shown that dogs can sniff out malaria in people, LSHTM, Medical Detection Dogs and Durham Uni are eager to start testing them out with COVID-19 samples. They are dedicated to making sure the trial is thorough and safe for all involved, with the dogs undergoing intensive pre-training.

Should the trial be successful, these dogs could be deployed to key points of entry in the UK within six months to assist with the rapid screening on people travelling from abroad – with the potential of screening up to 250 people per hour.