The Chilean Police have started training dogs to detect people that are infected with Coronavirus by sniffing their sweat.
Three golden retrievers and a labrador that are between the ages of four and five are part of the program that is viewed as a joint effort of the Chile’s national police, the Carabineros and specialists at Universidad Catolica de Chile. The dogs have been used to sniff out illicit drugs, explosives and lost people in the past.
While talking about the development, Julio Santelices, Head of the Police School of Specialties said the program follows the footsteps of similar programs happening in France.
He said: “The importance of this scientific study is that it will allow dogs to become biodetectors, and detect this type of illness at an early stage.”
Also, Fernando Mardones, a Universidad Catolica professor of veterinary epidemiology said: “The virus has no smell, but rather the infection generates metabolic changes which in turn leads to the release of a particular type of sweat which is what the dog would detect.”
Mardones added that evidence exists that dogs can discover diseases like tuberculosis, parasite infections and early stages of cancer.
The canine trainees started their education some weeks ago and will use sweat samples of COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment at the Universidad Catolica’s clinic. The experts hope that the dogs will start working on the field by August.
Dogs possess 330 million olfactory receptors, as such, they have the ability to detect smells 50 times better than humans. Besides that, dogs can sniff 250 people every hour.
