Trained dogs smell the coronavirus – What research shows in Britain

Another very useful skill is developed by specially trained dogs in Britain, who learn, using socks worn by people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to detect the “smell of coronavirus»In people with COVID-19.

According to British scientists today, these dogs can soon be used at airports or in crowded places.

Working in pairs, the dogs are trained to locate her COVID-19, can detect by smell the passengers who get out of an aircraft within half an hour, while they can identify those who are infected with a sensitivity rate greater than 94.3%, according to scientists.

According to AMPE, presenting the results of an early stage research, by processing 3,500 samples of the smell from unwashed socks or T-shirts worn by people who were ill and health workers, the scientists stated that dogs can detect both asymptomatic cases and cases with mild symptoms of infection from COVID-19, as well as cases of infection with a variant strain of coronavirus detected in the United Kingdom last year.

“Dogs can be a great way to quickly control large numbers of people, but also to prevent the reintroduction of COVID-19 into the UK,” said Steve Lindsay, a professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Durham University who worked on the same research.

James Logan, a disease control specialist (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) who led the study, said the biggest advantage of sniffing dogs over other detection methods, such as rapid diagnostic tests, is their “incredible speed and the good accuracy rate between large groups of people “.

Dogs, which can detect new coronavirus infections by smelling samples of human sweat, have already been trained in Thailand, at a time when the country is facing an increase in cases, many even asymptomatic.

(file photo)

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