Dogs can be trained to detect COVID-19 by sniffing human sweat, according to a proof-of-concept study published yesterday.
Detection dogs are already a common sight in airports and some other public places – usually, they’re sniffing out drugs, weapons or explosives.
But specially trained dogs have also been taught to detect infections and diseases, including colon cancer, malaria and Parkinson’s disease.
Now, many countries worldwide are exploring the possibility of using dogs as a rapid, reliable and relatively cheap way to prescreen people for COVID-19 or perform rapid checking in certain circumstances, like at airports.
In the United Kingdom, a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are training six dogs in the hope that they will be able to detect COVID-positive people – even if they have no symptoms.
In Finland, a group of sniffer dogs trained to detect COVID-19 began working at Helsinki Airport in September in an effort to identify those who have contracted the virus and in Chile police dogs are being trained to sniff out COVID-19 in humans.
Leave a Reply