By: Digital Content Producer Heather Lang
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Three hundred to 6 million. This is the number of smell receptors that dogs have for humans.
That’s why humans turn to our maximum and unwavering friends and their incredible noses to stumble upon destructive smells like drugs, bombs, accelerators, insects, diseases and more.
Nothing has been more damaging in recent times than the worldwide spread of the coronavirus known as COVID-19. Over 200,000 dead here in America and that doesn’t even make up the rest of the world.
The spread of this virus has caused many damage in our world, including travel. But dogs could alleviate some of the worry.
Last week, The Washington Post reported on a new logo pilot program in Finland. The country’s main airport in Helsinki has brought specially trained tracker dogs to stumble upon COVID-19 on travelers.
– MEGHAN SCHILLER (@MeghanKDKA) 23 September 2020
According to Reuters, the team consists of 15 dogs and 10 guides/trainers.
“They are very intelligent [in this area]. We are reaching 100 percent sensitivity,” Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, an adjunct professor at the University of Helsinki, told Reuters.
Verification is simple, Reports Reuters. The billed traveler receives a gauze to clean his neck. This gauze is then placed in a container and given to one of the dogs in a separate room to sniff it. Passengers suspected of carrying the dog virus should then go through a swab to verify the results.
Reuters also reports that the airport hopes one day to make dog paintings among passengers, as dogs running through customs do.
The United Arab Emirates has a program at Dubai International Airport, where they seal the traveler’s armpits, place the cotton swab in a container and let the dogs smell it in a separate place.
UAE dogs are police dogs.
Emirates News reports that dogs have a “coronavirus detection accuracy rate of 92%”.
It is still unknown when dogs will be used to trip over coronavirus at US airports. Usa, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine is running to get there.
Its pilot program consists of “using odor-detecting dogs to distinguish between samples of positive COVID patients and negative COVID,” according to Blue Sky News, the Pittsburgh International Airport press release.
“The possibility of affecting these dogs and their ability to stumble upon COVID-19 can be substantial. This test will leverage the dog’s normal ability to help the country’s COVID-19 surveillance systems reduce community spread. “Cynthia Otto, director of the Penn Vet Work Dog Center, told Blue Sky News.
The University of Pennsylvania trials have “trained nine dogs to encounter an odor they provide in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. “
Dog displays have an accuracy rate of 95%, however, there are still paintings to be made.
Blue Sky News says the university is lately recruiting 400 other people for a test to see if dogs “can tell the difference between those who test positive for the virus and those who test negative simply by sniffing clothes. “
The trial will use two hundred other people who tested positive for the virus and two hundred others who tested negative.
With good luck so far in those 3 pilot programs, as well as in other trials in Germany and France, it may not be long before dogs and their 300 million odor recipients sniffed COVID-19 at airports in Pennsylvania and around the world. .
Keep an eye out for animal lovers for more fur tails!You can me on Twitter at HeatherLang24