Cliff, a Beagle, is a specially trained detector dog working in two Dutch teaching hospitals. He’s been the centre of a major study into detection of Clostridium difficile (‘C diff’ for those who are professionals in the field), an infectious bacteria that can run rampant through hospitals, rest homes and other healthcare facilities.
Symptoms range from mild diarrhoea to more severe conditions like colitis. The bacterium can be transmitted through either personal contact or the environment and the testing for the bacteria is time consuming.
The research involved 300 patients, 30 which had C diff infection. Cliff was guided along the wards by his trainer and the trainer had no idea if the person was infected or not. Cliff was trained to sit or lie down when C diff was detected.
The Results? Cliff was an expert at identifying infections of C diff – with around 90% accuracy – regardless of whether he was sniffing out stool samples or identifying infected patients in the hospital. Cliff is only one dog, but with these results, the concept of using dogs to identify C diff infections has been proved.
This comprehensive video explains Cliff’s training and the research:
Source: British Medical Journal
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