New Delhi: At a time when a number of firms are busy developing vaccine for the deadly coronavirus, scientists on Tuesday said that even dogs will be able to detect the virus with remarkable accuracy. They also believed that dogs can help in controlling the coronavirus pandemic with their superior sense of smell.
The development comes when India is witnessing 37,975 new coronavirus infections in a day taking the country’s total COVID-19 caseload to over 91.77 lakh. The total coronavirus cases mounted to 91,77,840 and the death toll climbed to1,34,218 with 480 new fatalities, including 121 from the national capital alone.
According to a group of scientists, canines are being trained to detect coronavirus across the world. Experts who have trained these dogs claimed excellent results with perfect accuracy. And on the other hand, the scientists involved in the efforts also stated that canines can help in controlling the coronavirus pandemic as they can be used to screen hundreds of human beings per hour at places like airports or markets.
Interestingly, using canines to detect coronavirus is cheaper than the RT-PCR test itself. However, most of the detections done by dogs in humans have not been reviewed as yet. And hence, it is difficult to come to the conclusion at this moment.
Part from human beings, scientists are also working with animals to find if they certainly can detect coronavirus. While scientists have trained dogs to detect some cancers and malaria, it is not really possible to say what they are actually sniffing. And so, they aren’t used generally.
As per media reports, dogs in Lebanon and Finland have been used to detect coronavirus among the passengers before their symptoms began to appear. In Lebanon, dogs have screened 1,680 passengers and found 158 (92%) coronavirus cases that were also confirmed by the RT-PCR tests.