The Dubai airport has begun using these pups that are able to detect the coronavirus with their sniffer.
While normally dogs like this are used to sniff out drugs or bombs, they’ve now been trained to notice the coronavirus. The Dubai airport has become the first ever to utilize canines to try and mitigate the spread of this global plague.
In regards to the new program, Dubai’s Ministry of Interior claimed:
“Data and studies showed that detection of presumed Covid-19 cases achieved approximately 92 percent in overall accuracy”
He went on to say:
“Figures indicate that dogs can quickly detect infected cases, help protect key sites, effectively deal with huge crowds and secure large events, airports, etc.”
Apparently, samples are taken from the armpits of travelers before being placed into specified containers. From there, the samples are taken to isolated rooms where these specially trained dogs give them a good sniff. If the dog indicates any traces of the virus, those passengers are required to take a nasal test.
This isn’t the first time the idea of using dogs for virus detection has been considered. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has carried out similar trials to determine if Medical Detection Dogs could be used to detect other diseases in humans, such as cancer, malaria and Parkinson’s disease.
The Minister for Innovation, Lord Bethell said of this:
“Bio-detection dogs already detect specific cancers and we believe this innovation might provide speedy results as part of our wider testing strategy”.
This may be an exciting development in the detection, and slowing down of coronavirus outbreaks worldwide. And unlike when a drug dog busts you for an ounce of weed, you’d be happy to have one of these good boys give you a heads up about the virus. While this may get you excited to start flying again, you might want to check out what happened during this fight on a plane because of a mask recently.
Featured image via
