Dogs Are Being Trained To Sniff Out COVID-19 In People

They say that dogs have the ability to sniff out cancer in people. As you might know, dogs have a very keen sense of smell, so the belief is that dogs are able to smell certain things in people that are being generated because of cancer. Based on that belief, it seems that over in Spain, dogs are being trained to sniff out COVID-19 in people.

According to university professor and veterinary epidemiologist, Fernando Mardones from the Catholic University of Chile, “A body that contracts Covid-19 generates volatile organic compounds. A sample is taken from a person in the early stages of the infection. A gauze is left for about 15 minutes on an individual’s underarm. That’s the sample we store and use to train the dogs with.”

That being said, it should be noted that at the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that dogs will be capable of sniffing out the coronavirus, so it will be interesting to see how effective this training program will be. At the moment, it is a pretty small program with about four puppies in training, but presumably if successful, would see it expanded.

Colonel Julio Santelices from the Chilean police adds, “A dog can detect, in an hour, it can sniff 250 people. So when we begin opening stadiums, schools, businesses, restaurants, it will be essential that in those places that are being opened, as we seek normalcy, we can now add our bio-detector dogs.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Medical
Tags: Coronavirus, covid-19