Page 50 - Bulletin, Vol.81 No.1, May 2022
P. 50
by doctors in the field, it is far from being shared by the decision-makers in our senior
administration!
Thus, in many discussions, two powerful paradigms appeared to us as almost
impossible to modify: veterinarians seeking to work in a human pandemic, are you
kidding? Dogs as efficient as sophisticated machines, what nonsense!
However, the proof is in the pudding and supports the positions taken by our veterinary
and medical academies at the end of 2020, and more recently by the WHO: it works,
and even very well!
Publications of proof of concept, sensitivity and specificity data for the "canine olfactory
test", results of mass field testing (airports, borders, clusters, retirement homes, etc.)
are pouring in from many countries (France, Australia, Lebanon, Emirates, Brazil, Chile,
Finland, Germany, USA, Great Britain) and involve all veterinary universities.
Several countries have requested the expertise of "Nosaïs" in order to develop a similar
protocol for operational mass screening purposes: Argentina and Chile, which are
considering deployment in airports, Brazil, Australia and soon, Belgium. The United
Arab Emirates, thanks to significant resources, is currently deploying the 20 teams
already trained at Dubai airport. Implementation at the arrival of tourist liners is also
envisaged.
The Emirates organise an exchange symposium every two months, which now brings
together 42 countries, while the WHO has enabled several thematic working groups to
be structured.
As for France... we are still waiting for both a decision-making process and, who knows,
perhaps also the means within the framework of a deployment proposed and detailed
last February?
Today, support has come from the management of the EnvA (which has provided us
with dedicated premises), private companies (Royal-Canin, CEVA, Dômes Pharma,
VetOne) and the WHO.
The more than convincing results of the full-scale test carried out with the APHP
(Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris) under the aegis of the Ile de France Region
(average sensitivity/specificity of the canine olfactory test at 97/91p1000, and for
asymptomatic patients at 100/94p100), which are quite comparable to the results of the
nasopharyngeal PCR test, will perhaps make some of those who are reluctant to take
part think twice and change their minds?
In terms of the costs involved, a dog test costs about 1 euro (75 times less than a PCR),
and in our way of working on sweat samples, a dog can test about 150 samples per
day. To be able to move to a detection on people "in line" would undoubtedly make it
possible to multiply this figure by 10. But to do this, we need the will of the State, if only
to facilitate access to samples (today it is compulsory to go through a research protocol
managed by a university hospital and approved by a Commission for the Protection of
Individuals, among others).
48 AAFI-AFICS BULLETIN, Vol. 81 No. 1, 2022-05