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  • World - South America
  • Updated: July 15, 2020

Dogs In Chile Trained To Sniff Out Coronavirus

Dogs In Chile Trained To Sniff Out Coronavirus

 

Dogs in Chile are trained by the police to detect coronavirus from people who may be infected with the virus by sniffing their sweat.

The dogs used in the training are a Labrador and three golden retrievers aged between four and five, originally trained to sniff out illegal drugs, lost people, and explosives, according to the police.

The French police started the trend of using dogs to sniff out possible coronavirus patients.

Explaining how the sniffing out of the virus on carriers works, a Professor at the Universidad Catolica, Fernando Mardones, said, “The virus has no smell, but rather the infection generates metabolic changes.”

Dogs' sense of smell is so acute that they have the ability to smell 250 people per hour, armed with 330 million olfactory receptors that make their smelling capability 50 times more than that of a human.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 Vaccine, Moderna, Moves To Final Testing Stage

Speaking with AFP, the head of police school of specialities in Chile, Julio Santelices, “The importance of this scientific study is that it will allow dogs to become biodetectors, and detect this type of illness at an early stage."

Carrying out this endeavour with dogs comes as research shows that dogs have the ability to sniff out parasite infections, early cancer stages, tuberculosis, among other things.

Research on whether dogs can contract the virus, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), shows that dogs can be infected but cannot transmit the virus to humans.

Chile has 319,493 coronavirus infections, with close to 10,000 deaths.

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