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In recent months, the main international airports have adopted different systems to detect the possible presence of the coronavirus among passengers, from simple temperature measurement to the use of rapid tests. At the Helsinki airport they decided to experiment with a different approach: taking advantage of the dog’s nose.
The test
Passengers landing at the airport in the capital of Finland have the opportunity to voluntarily undergo a small test – less than a minute – that does not require a saliva and mucus sample with the now classic swab. Immediately after collecting the luggage, they are asked to wrap a towel around their necks to collect some sweat and place it in a small container. An operator then inserts the towel into a tin container, which is then placed on a shelf along with other containers of the same shape, but containing substances that emit other perfumes. Once everything is set up, it is the dog’s turn.
During the test, which lasts about ten seconds, the dog sniffs the different cans and signals if one of them contains the smell that people with a current coronavirus infection usually have. In the event of a positive result, the passenger is invited to go to another area of the airport where the swab test can be performed free of charge, to confirm or not the indication given by the dog. From the moment the sweat is collected to the result of the canine test, a little less than a minute passes, so using more dogs, hundreds of passengers can be checked every hour.
Dogs and coronavirus
As is known, dogs have an extremely sensitive sense of smell and have been used for decades in airports, for example, to detect the presence of explosives, or drugs and other contraband materials. Some research has also highlighted how some dogs can also detect the presence of certain diseases by sniffing at people with malaria or some forms of cancer.
Based on these assumptions, some researchers have wondered if it was not possible to exploit this canine talent also to detect the presence of the coronavirus, at least partially simplifying control activities to reduce the spread of the pandemic. At the University of Helsinki, researcher Anna Hielm-Bjorkman participated in a project to test this solution, starting with some tests in people who tested positive for the coronavirus, but are still asymptomatic or in the final stage of incubation that does not yet imply the presence of symptoms.
Dogs have demonstrated the ability to detect the presence of the coronavirus both in the case of people with symptoms and in the case of asymptomatic people. In general, it has been shown that they can do this by anticipating swab testing.
(MAGAZINE / ANTTI AIMO-KOIVISTO – AP Images)
Training and research
Then the Helsinki researchers began training some dogs, developing the test with the cans. They followed the classic method with positive reinforcement, such as giving bites of food, as long as the dogs correctly identified a sample taken from a coronavirus-positive individual. The training involved 16 dogs in total, four of which began their shifts at the airport this week. Another six are finishing their training, while the rest have not passed it because they proved to be too sensitive to noisy environments and therefore not suitable for working at the airport.
The Helsinki experience is the most advanced of its kind, but it is not the only one yet. Last July, for example, a group of researchers from the University of Hannover (Germany) had carried out some tests, training dogs for a week to recognize the smell of saliva from those who were positive for the coronavirus. At the end of the lessons, the dogs correctly recognized a positive case from a negative one in 94 percent of the cases.
(MAGAZINE / ANTTI AIMO-KOIVISTO – AP Images)
The researchers admit that they still don’t have very clear ideas about which coronavirus-related compounds are actually recognized by dogs. Some studies are being carried out to find out if the positives emit a particular smell, as the experiences carried out so far and that of Helsinki airport seem to indicate.
More dogs
Trials with volunteer passengers will be extended in the coming weeks, thanks to the addition of more dog teams. By the end of the year, Finnish researchers should have a sufficient amount of data to determine the agreeableness of the test through canine scent. Similar studies underway in other areas of the world will provide more data on the usefulness of this approach.
If the new data confirmed the positive experiences so far, dogs could be used in many contexts to help prevent new coronavirus outbreaks: for example, in nursing homes, where a single case can cause infections among already sick people and risk due to their advanced age, as occurred in the first months of the pandemic in many countries.
(MAGAZINE / ANTTI AIMO-KOIVISTO – AP Images)
However, carrying out large-scale canine tests would not be easy, both because of the time required for training and because each dog would need to be accompanied and supervised by an operator at all times. To date, it is not even clear what the length of a shift might be: for dogs the reconnaissance activity is a game, but in doing so they tend to tire at the risk of becoming less accurate as they tire.
However, the program tested in Helsinki does not imply risks for dogs: they do not easily become infected by the coronavirus (there have been reports of some isolated cases) and to date no scientific evidence has been collected that they can develop symptoms, or that they can to transmit. the virus to other individuals or animals.
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