Headlines

Dogs Deployed to Detect COVID-19 at Finland Airport

4 dogs are now on the job in a pilot project.

Published

4 years ago

September 24, 2020

PETS+ Staff

Researchers believe dogs can detect COVID-19, and they’re testing the idea at the airport in Helsinki, Finland.

Four dogs are now on the job in a pilot project, The Guardian reports. Several more are being trained to join them.

“It’s very promising,” Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki was quoted saying. “If it works, it could prove a good screening method in other places.” Such places could include hospitals and sporting events.

According to The Guardian: “After collecting their luggage, arriving international passengers are asked to dab their skin with a wipe. In a separate booth, the beaker containing the wipe is then placed next to others containing different control scents – and the dog starts sniffing.”

If the dog alerts handlers to a positive finding, the traveler is asked to take a polymerase chain reaction test via nasal swab.

Scientists in several other countries, including Germany, are also researching the COVID-19-detecting abilities of dogs. Finland is reportedly “the first country in Europe to put dogs to work sniffing out the coronavirus,” The Guardian reports.

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