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Finland has deployed coronavirus tracker dogs at the main foreign airport in the Nordic country as a component of a four-month trial of a proof-of-choice approach that can be a cost-effective and immediate way to identify inflamed travelers.
Four dogs of other breeds trained through the Finland Odour Detection Association began painting at Helsinki Airport as part of the government-funded test.
“It’s a very promising method. Dogs are very olfactory,” said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, professor of equine medicine and small animals at the University of Helsinki.
“If it works, it will be a smart detection approach (coronavirus) in all other locations,” he said, in the directory of hospitals, ports, nursing homes, sports facilities and cultural events among imaginable locations where trained dogs can simply snout. . Work.
While researchers from several countries, including Australia, France, Germany and the United States, are also dogs as coronavirus detectors, the Finnish trial is among the largest to date.
Hielm-Bjorkman told The Associated Press that Finland is the country where, after the United Arab Emirates, and the first in Europe, dogs are assigned to suffer the coronavirus. A similar program began at Dubai International Airport during the summer.
Passengers who agree to make a loose check under the voluntary program in Helsinki have direct physical contact with a dog.
They are asked to rub their skin with a wipe that is then placed in a jar and delivered to a dog waiting in a separate cabin. Participating animals, ET, Kossi, Miina and Valo, have already been trained to run into cancer, diabetes or disease.
The dog only takes 10 seconds to sniff out the virus samples before giving the result of the verification by scraping one leg, measuring it down, barking or making its conclusion known. The procedure will be completed in one minute, according to Hielm-Bjorkman.
If the result is positive, the passenger is asked to perform a chain reaction using polymerosis, or PCR, coronavirus test, to check the accuracy of the dog.
Timo Aronkyto, deputy mayor of Vantaa, the capital of the region where the airport is located, said the program charges 300,000 euros (US$534,073), an amount he described as “significantly lower” than other arriving passenger mass strategies.
The 4 sniffer dogs must paint at the airport in turns, two at a time, while the other two take a break.
“Dogs want to rest from time to time. If the fragrance is easy, wear the dog too far. But if there are many new smells, dogs get more easily tired,” said Anette Kare of the Finnish Odor Detection Association, also known as a wise nose, while gently caressing ET, her white shepherd.