Malaria is one of the world’s biggest killers, responsible for 584,000 deaths each year.

Early results from our research show that dogs can accurately identify the odour of malaria opening up the potential to help fight the disease.

Presenting the results of the world’s first study into dog’s ability to detect the odour of malaria at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Medical Detection Dogs Chief Executive Dr Claire Guest said, “this is the first time we have trained dogs to detect a parasite infection and we have had very positive results.”

Our dogs, Labrador-Golden Retriever cross, Lexi and Labrador, Sally were able to correctly identify 70 per cent of the malaria-infected samples and 90 per cent of the samples without malaria parasites. Dr Guest said, “If this is what the dogs can do on a small piece of sock I believe that detection levels could well exceed these results”.

Malaria is both preventable and curable and our research is aimed at harnessing the amazing power of a dog’s nose to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. Dr Guest said “the challenge is to find a fast, non-invasive way of screening large numbers of people for malaria to prevent its spread in to disease free areas. Our work has the potential to make this challenge a reality.”

The dogs were trained to distinguish between the scent of children infected with malaria parasites and those who were uninfected by sniffing socks worn for 24 hours by children in The Gambia which were then vacuum packed and sent to the UK. You can learn more about the project from Dr Guest and her co-author Professor Steve Lindsay from Durham University, the Principal Investigator on the project and Professor James Logan from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in this short video:

You can find more details of our malaria research here

The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and was a collaboration between Medical Detection Dogs, Durham University, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Dundee (in the UK), the Medical Research Council Gambia Unit and the National Malaria Control Programme, in The Gambia.

We use cookies to understand your user experience. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
About cookies
Cookies are information packets sent by web servers to web browsers, and stored by the web browsers.
The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables a web server to identify and track web browsers. Some cookies are deleted at the end of a session, others remain on your computer until you delete them or they reach an expiry date.
Cookies on our website
Medical Detection Dogs uses the following cookies on this website, for the following purposes:
Analytics – We anonymously measure your use of this website to improve your experience Social media – Facebook, Twitter and other social websites need to know who you are to work properly
Google cookies Medical Detection Dogs uses Google Analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users' computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store and use this information. Google's privacy policy can be found on their site at www.google.com/policies/privacy.
Refusing cookies
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies - these controls are usually found in settings and privacy. Please refer to your browser help function.
Blocking cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of some websites.

Close