[ad_1]
At the airport in the Finnish capital Helsinki, three dogs are used to find people infected with corona. The project is on the right track.
Results are largely in line with Corona’s tests: Corona’s detector dogs are used at Helsinki Airport (symbol image)
Keystone / Matt Houston
According to the researchers, a pilot project with corona detector dogs at the airport in the Finnish capital Helsinki has yielded promising initial results. All three dogs have proven popular with travelers as “crown testers.”
Researchers at the University of Helsinki announced Wednesday. Consequently, dogs found an infection with the coronavirus in 0.6 percent of the 2,200 passenger cases examined.
Results at the end of the year
According to the information, the results largely coincide with the results of the corona tests, which were also performed on the passengers. “We have performed between 16,000 and 17,000 PCR tests at the airport and less than one percent are positive,” Vantaa Deputy Mayor Timo Aronkyto told reporters.
Now the researchers want to verify if the dogs were actually able to sniff out all the infections that were also confirmed by the corona tests. Final results must be submitted at the end of the year.
Many volunteers
According to the researchers, preliminary tests during the first big wave of infections earlier in the year indicated that dogs can detect the virus with nearly 100 percent accuracy, up to five days earlier than a corona test.
Travelers would particularly welcome animal snoopers, said project manager Soile Turunen. Every day around a hundred people volunteered to queue up to participate in the project. “People don’t complain about the snake, on the contrary,” Turunen said. Many would come to say hello.
Dogs are not yet officially used
For the pilot project, the researchers are working together with specialists in sniffer dogs from the organization “Wise Nose”. They hope that sniffer dogs can also be used elsewhere in the future, such as larger gatherings, to detect corona infections. To do this, the animals smell a swab that has been cleaned on the traveler’s skin.
Although studies with sniffer dogs have also been conducted in other countries, they are not yet officially used to detect the new coronavirus. However, there are also projects in which dogs are trained to use samples to detect certain types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease or bacterial infections.
