Three dogs, called Kossi, ET and Miina, sniffed swabs of 2,200 passengers a month since the installation of the control booth in the airport arrivals corridor and discovered the virus in 0. 6% of travelers.
Although the search is completed until December, the team says the initial effects appear to be broadly consistent with nasal PCR control detection rates that were also performed on incoming travelers.
“We have conducted between 16 and 17,000 PCR tests at the airport and less than one is positive,” Timo Aronkyto, Vantaa’s deputy mayor, told the press.
Compared to the effects discovered through dogs, “they’re pretty much the same, I don’t think there’s a statistical difference,” Aronkyto said.
Researchers are now looking at the extent to which the two sets of verification effects fit together (dogs have discovered coronavirus in passengers whose infection was demonstrated through a PCR check) and hope to publish their effects at the end of the test. Year.
Preliminary experiments on the first major wave of infections earlier in the year warned that dogs can stumble upon the virus with nearly one hundred percent accuracy, up to five days before a PCR test.
The reactions of passengers upon arrival, who voluntarily undergo the loose test, “have been exceptionally positive,” said the director of assignment, Soile Turunen.
About one hundred travelers a day line up for the test, which involves cleaning a swab on the skin that is then placed in front of the dog, which will temporarily pass a negative pattern but will be attracted by a positive pattern.
“People don’t complain about queues, in fact it’s quite the opposite,” Turunen said.
“They come to us and say “hello” from morning to night,” he added.
A fourth dog, a German shepherd named Valo, is recently in formation to start painting in the airport checkbox.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki, in collaboration with wise-nosed tracker dog specialists, hope their studies will convince the government to fund the deployment of dogs for other purposes, such as tourist access points or giant public gatherings.
Although trials have been conducted with tracking dogs elsewhere, such as in the United Arab Emirates, France, Ruussie and Chile, the use of dog odor detectors for coronavirus testing has not yet been widely followed by the authorities, partly due to a lack of peers. evaluated literature, some researchers think.