Helsinki airport has started using dogs to sniff out passengers infected with coronavirus in an effort to curb infection rates. Trained dogs can detect Covid-19 with close to 100% certainty, a study by the University of Helsinki’s Veterinary Faculty claims.
While the PCR test needs around 1.8 million molecules to identify the virus, dogs only need 10 to 100 molecules, Finnish airport operator Finavia said. An eight-year-old greyhound mix named Kössi learned to identify the smell of coronavirus in just seven minutes.
The pilot project kicked off on Tuesday and is being trialled with 16 dogs trained by Wise Nose, a Finnish smell detection agency, the Independent reports. It will see passengers swab their skin with a test wipe, before handing it over for a dog to smell. Anyone found to be carrying the virus will be moved to a health information point. The program has been described as a ‘world first’ by the director of Helsinki Airport Ulla Lettijeff.
She said: ‘No other airport has attempted to use canine scent detection on such a large scale against Covid-19. This might be an additional step forward on the way to beating Covid-19.’ It comes after trainers in the UK launched a similar scheme to help struggling airlines during the pandemic.
Six ‘bio-detection dogs’ are being trained in Milton Keynes to smell socks and T-shirts to see if they can detect whether a person has the virus. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) said trained dogs could be deployed in UK airports within six months, potentially screening up to 250 people per hour. Some sniffer dogs can already detect Parkinson’s disease, malaria and some cancers.
