Dogs Can Be Trained To Detect COVID-19 Cases: Study
A recent study has found that man’s best friend, dogs, are
capable of detecting the coronavirus in 90 per cent of the cases, even when the
patients are asymptomatic.
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In Phases From June 1
This study was conducted by researchers from the London
School of Tropical Medicine. They wanted to see if dogs are able to use their
strong sense of smell to detect COVID-19 in patients. Dogs had earlier already
shown that they can sniff out maladies such as cancer, malaria and epilepsy.
According to reports, the researchers gathered samples of
clothing and face masks from people who had tested positive for the
coronavirus. After that, these samples were arranged in laboratories in order
to conduct tests for six dogs who have been trained to detect either a presence
or an absence of a chemical compound.
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Meanwhile, the dogs needed to be trained not to identify
"false positives" in order to hack their reward system and obtain
treats even if there were no COVID-19 samples in a given test. Furthermore,
this new development could help detect positive patients at terminuses such as
airports.
However, researchers have stated that more study needs to be
done in order to ascertain that the dogs can reliably and specifically detect
asymptomatic cases.
On the other hand, due to the fear of an upcoming third wave
of COVID-19 across the state of Maharashtra, the state government is reportedly
preparing to ease the state-wide lockdown in a phased manner in view of the
decline in coronavirus cases and positivity rate in the state.
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