Sniffer dogs, specially trained to detect asymptomatic COVID-19-infected people, will soon be sent to international airports and seaports to help identify asymptomatic cases on arrivals from abroad.
According to the Chula Journal website, six Labrador retrievers were trained during a 6-month pilot project by a research team from the veterinary faculty of Chulalongkorn University. The result was 94,8% accuracy in detecting.
Professor Dr. Kaywalee Chatdarong, Vice Dean of the Research and Innovations Section of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and head of the project, explained that all thermal scanners or imaging systems installed in ports of entry or public locations only detect higher body temperatures and no other symptoms and are therefore ineffective in detecting symptomatic cases.
However, dogs' noses are 50 times more sensitive than humans and can detect asymptomatic cases through their sweat.
The project is a joint effort between the faculties of Veterinary Medicine, Medicine and Science at Chulalongkorn University, with funding from the Chevron Company.
The study protocol includes the collection of sweat. The dogs don't have to sniff people, because the sweat is put into a can via cotton swabs in a germ-free lab to be sniffed by the trained dogs.
"When a dog kneels, it means the sample is from an asymptomatic case," said Professor Dr. Kaywalee, adding that the entire testing process is safe for the dogs and officials involved.
The accuracy of the trained sniffer dogs is comparable to that of the sniffer dogs already deployed in Finland, Germany, France and Australia.
Source: Thaivisa/Reuter
A very good idea! Hopefully, vaccinated people will be able to travel back to this beautiful country soon.
How on earth is it possible to take sweat off a tourist at Suvarabhum airport?
That cotton swab must then be taken to a germ-free laboratory.
There it must be “packed” in a can using a germ-free procedure, and then a specially trained dog must determine whether it contains an “contaminated” filling.
How long would that tourist have to wait for that result? Because he then still has to go to an ASQ hotel?
I wonder if a blog reader has a possible answer to this.
A wonderful job for the army of stray dogs in this country.