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''' '' DOGS SNIFFING
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IN RECENT MONTHS -TRIALS CONDUCTED in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States have assessed how dogs could detect the coronavirus.
TRAVELLERS ARRIVING AT HELSINKI'S AIRPORT are being offered a voluntary coronavirus test that takes 10 seconds, with no uncomfortable nasal swab needed. And the test is done by a dog.
A couple of coronavirus-sniffing canines begin work in at the Finnish airport on Wednesday as part of a pilot program to detect infections by using sweat collected from arriving passengers.
Over recent months, international airports have brought in various methods to detect the virus in travelers, including temperature checks and nasal swabs. But researchers in Finland say that using dogs could be cheaper, faster and more effective.
After passengers arriving from abroad have collected their luggage, they are invited to wipe their necks to collect sweat samples and have the wipes in a box. Behind a wall, a dog trainer puts the box beside cans containing different scents, and a dog gets to work.
The dogs can detect a coronavirus-infected patients in 10 seconds, and the entire process takes a minute to complete, researchers say. If the dog signals a positive result, the passenger is directed to the airport's health center for a free virus test.
WHY DOGS ?
Dogs have a particularly sharp sense of smell and have long been used in airports to sniff out bombs, drugs and other contraband in luggage.
They have also been able to detect illnesses such as cancer and malaria. So in the middle of a pandemic, training dogs to detect Covid-19 became an obvious choice, said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a researcher at University of Helsinki who is monitoring the trial.
And they seem to be doing the job, she said. In the first stage of the trial, the dogs could sniff out the virus in a person who was asymptomatic or before symptoms appeared.
In July, researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover in Germany also found that with a week of training, dogs were able to distinguish saliva samples of people infected with with the coronavirus from noninfected samples with a 94% success rate.
Dogs seem to not be easily infected with the coronavirus, although they appear to have been in a few instances. Other animals like cats appear to be much more susceptible. There is no evidence that dogs develop any symptoms or that they can pass the virus on to people or other animals.
HOW DO THEY DO IT?
The sniffer dogs, who are trained to recognize the virus's scent, detect it by smalling urine or sweaty samples, according to the University of Helsinki's veterinary faculty.
Ms. Hielm-Bjorkman said she and her team had trained dogs by making a specific sound as soon as a dog indicated a positive sample - ''and yes, a treat, too,'' she said.
When the dogs smell a negative sample, nothing happens, and they move on to the next.
Wise Nose, a Finnish organization that specializes in scent detection, worked with the university faculty to train 16 dogs, four of which are starting work at the airport this week. Six are still in training, and the others were unable to to work in noisy environment.
''All dogs can be trained to smell the coronavirus, but they are individuals, and not all of them can work in an airport,'' said Virpi Perala, a representative of Evidensia, a network of hospitals and veterinary clinics that funded the trial's first stage.
COULD THIS BECOME A THING?
The pilot program in Finland is the firsat to be used at an airport. Susanna Paavilainen, the managing director of Wise Nose, said she aimed to have 10 dogs working at the airport by the end of November, and Ms. Hielm-Bjorkman of the University of Helsinki said she would collect data until the end of the year. More such programs could also be in the way.
So to sum, in Finland researchers say that if the pilot programs prove effective, dogs could be used to in retirement homes to screen residents or in hospitals to avoid unnecessary quarantines for health care professionals.
But scaling up such programs could be tricky. Dogs need to be trained and then assisted by their trainers, once they can work outside the laboratories.
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on State-Of-The-World, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Elian Peltier.
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