CHILEAN POLICE TRAIN SMART DOGS TO SNIFF OUT CORONAVIRUS IN EARLY STAGES

The Telegraph 1 August 2020 - by our foreign staff 

© ELVIS GONZALES/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock A canine training official from the Chilean Carabineros shows a dog trained to detect Covid-19 in Santiago - ELVIS GONZALES/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Chilean police are training sniffer dogs to detect coronavirus in people's sweat at an early stage, after a similar trial in the UK showed encouraging results.

Four dogs have been selected for the initial training - a mix of labradors and golden retrievers that sport green "biodetector" jackets for their task.

They are being trained at the Chilean Carabineros' specialist training base in the capital Santiago.

Sniffer dogs are best known for detecting drugs, explosives and people but have also been trained to detect diseases including malaria, cancer and Parkinson's disease.

Lieutenant Colonel Cristian Acevedo Yanez, director of the police specialty training school, said dogs had more than three million olfactory receptors - more than 50 times those of humans - so were uniquely placed to help fight coronavirus.

He said the canines could play a critical part as Chile seeks to gradually reopen its schools and shops and get people back to work.

"The role of police is to strengthen our detection abilities in this 'new normal'," he said.

"The idea is that our dogs would be in busy places such as schools, bus terminals and airports, and could detect people at an early stage of the disease to be able to isolate them and perform the appropriate PCR test, avoiding mass contagions.

"Essentially what these dogs - four at first, and their guides - will do is save lives.”

The Telegraph reported in May that medical sniffer dogs were being trained to detect asymptomatic coronavirus carriers under a Government-backed initiative that could see 250 people screened per hour.

Three cocker spaniels, two labradors and a labradoodle began intensive training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine using odour samples from Covid-19-positive patients.

 As part of another study, French scientists said in June that dogs are able to detect the presence of Covid-19 on infected patients by sniffing their armpits.

Researchers at the national veterinary school in Alfort, outside Paris, trained eight Belgian Malinois shepherd dogs to identify people infected with the coronavirus from odour samples taken from the armpits of more than 360 subjects, both healthy and suffering from Covid-19.