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It seems there are no limits to a dog’s sniffer.
Researchers in Finland recently conducted a study and confirmed that scent dogs can be taught to identify people infected with coronavirus through skin swabs.
And you won’t believe the accuracy: 92 percent, according to ScienceDaily.
Researchers hope that one day scent dogs can be used as a part of global pandemic management. Current tests for coronavirus are accurate but aren’t ideal for screening large crowds of people because the results come slow and the tests are expensive. Scent dogs may be able to speed up the process.
The study was conducted at Helsinki-Vantaa International airport by researchers from the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital. (You can read the details here.)
One challenge to overcome: the dogs were trained with the initial “wild-type” coronavirus. They didn’t sniff out coronavirus variant cases as well. So training will be a big part if a widespread detection program will be successful.
We at Pugpalooza recently highlighted the wonderous power of dogs’ noses and how they are being used to find everything from cancer to endangered platypus. Now it seems you can add coronavirus to that list.
Dogs’ sense of smell is between 10,000 and 100,000 times more sensitive than humans. More remarkably, the part of a dog’s brain tasked to figure out smells is roughly 40 times larger than a human, according to the American Kennel Club.
That’s a superpower we’re glad to have on our side!
Until next time,
Hugs and Pug Kisses,
Candy
Sources and Links:
Scent dogs detect coronavirus reliably from skin swabs — ScienceDaily
Puppy Senses: When Can a Puppy See, Smell, and Hear? (akc.org)
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
