Nowadays, a few researchers are working on whether dogs can be used for sniffing out coronavirus or not. The dogs named Digby, Norman, Star, Storm, Asher, and Jasper, are involved in this research, and they are being trained to find out if there is coronavirus around them. These sniffer dogs are kept separated from the other wins, and scientists believe that they will be successful in this project as dogs have a great sense of smell. Quite interesting isn’t it entertaining?
According to them, if this research becomes successful, these sniffer dogs will be able to tell if someone around them has coronavirus, and their prediction would be up to 90% accurate. The training programs that these sniffer dogs are given is of 8 weeks, and its purpose is to get them familiar with the smell of coronavirus.
Sniffer dogs or you can call them ‘super six,’ can help during this global pandemic by screening the possible carrier of coronavirus. COVID 19 doesn’t show any symptoms for almost two weeks, so there are a lot of people who don’t know whether they are carrying it or not. During this period, they go out and meet other people spreading the virus far and wide.
If a dog can sniff out the germs of COVID 19 in a person who is not showing any symptoms yet, he can be isolated, and the risk of spreading it would be eliminated. So training these sniffer dogs and making this sort of screening possible would be very beneficial during these tough times.
The reason that dogs are chosen for this sort of project is that they have a really sensitive sense of smell. They can sniff from far away, and when they are given the right kind of training, they can easily sniff and sense a specific scent. For example, dogs used in the FBI and for detecting drugs, explosives, and dead bodies are given specialized training after that they can easily sense sniff them even from a great distance. Now concerning coronavirus, scientists are trying them to pick up a specific scent that can only be present in coronavirus and COVID 19 infected patients.
In the past, there have been a few incidents in which dogs were used for detecting the patients of a particular disease. Scientists are trying to use the same sort of technique and training in this one so that these sniffer dogs can identify COVID 19 patients.
Conditions like cancer, malaria, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes are known for giving off a particular scent. So if coronavirus is the same and leaves a specific odor in its carriers, then the time is near that we will be able to handle this pandemic with the help of some fantastic sniffer dogs. For example, you have a friend who is infected from coronavirus, but due to some reasons, he is not showing any symptoms so that he wouldn’t know about it. He would meet your other friends without even thinking twice, which will result in affecting a lot of people. This is how fast this deadly virus spreads, so let’s pray this group of sniffer dogs is successfully trained and help us in controlling the spread of this disease.
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