At Chile Airport COVID detection process goes to the dogs

At Chile’s Santiago international airport, the task of sniffing out passengers infected with COVID-19 is going to the dogs.

A team of Labradors & Golden Retrievers sits when they smell the virus and get a treat. The canines adorn green “biodetector” jackets with a red cross.

Sniffer dogs are best-known for finding explosives and drugs but have also been trained previously to detect cancer, malaria, and Parkinson’s disease.

Passengers at the airport health checkpoint wipe their necks and wrists with gauze pads that are then put in glass containers and sent to the dogs to see if they detect COVID-19.

At airports in the United Arab Emirates and Finland dogs trained to detect the novel coronavirus have already begun sniffing passenger samples. A recent study reveals that dogs can identify infected individuals with 85% to 100% accuracy and could rule out infection with 92% to 99% accuracy.

The dogs have been trained by Chile’s Carabinero police. Inspector General Esteban Diaz said dogs have more than 3 million olfactory receptors, which is more than 50 times those of humans and hence uniquely placed to help fight the coronavirus.

Source – reuters.com

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