Dogs who could soon sniff out malaria - with help from Bill Gates

Daily Mail ^ | 30 May 2016 | Andrew Pierce

[Jemian]

A low, flat, white building in rural Buckinghamshire would seem an unlikely spot to develop an early warning test for deadly malaria.

The building is home to Medical Detection Dogs, a charity set up in 2008 to harness the animals' extraordinary sense of smell to detect disease in humans.

Dogs trained by the charity have already proved their worth as medical alert assistance dogs, helping their owners manage conditions such as type 1 diabetes by detecting odour changes linked to low or high blood sugar levels and then alerting them. Medical Detection Dogs harnesses the animals' extraordinary sense of smell to detect disease in humans.

[Jemian]

Several things, my dog NEVER seems to know when I develop malaria. But, in Papua, the national kids, and most of the adults, are TERRIFIED of dogs. I cannot imagine them letting a dog get close enough to sniff them. It would be a traumatic experience for both kid and beast.

[Ann Archy]

Is Malaria from Mosquitos?

[CopperTop]

But you KNEW this was gonna show up here. d;^)

[humblegunner]

[Dr. Sivana]

I KNEW a good use would be found for "Microsoft BOB"



Time to bring back the Microsoft Office Assistant!

[G Larry]

If they really cared about stopping stopping malaria and zika they’d bring back DDT.

Check the July 2007 Nat’l Geographic, which belatedly admitted DDT is not the plague it was portrayed to be.

>http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature1/text3.html<

DDT was stopped when they discovered it was saving over 1 million 3rd world lives per year.
Then the POPULATION CONTROL crowd became alarmed at the impact that would have on those countries developing and demanding control of their own natural resources.

[Ancesthntr]

Can we train dogs to detect when politicians are full of crap?

Yeah, I know, they’ll be kept very busy. But this seems to be much more useful. Malaria can be treated fairly easily, pols are an insidious disease that, once the host is infected, is usually beyond a cure.

[Jemian]

Malaria is caused by a parasite which is carried by mosquitos.

[Jemian]

Yes. I agree whole heartedly. As someone who has had two types of malaria and dengue fever at the same time, and who sees many undernourished people die from those diseases, I feel that withholding DDT is akin to murder.

(FWIW, not only did I have those three illnesses, but I had a kidney infection at the same time. Yes, I think I almost died and it was several months, actually years before I recovered.)