Covid sniffing canine starting career at Helsinki Airport

Imagine being sniffed by a dog and being told you have the coronavirus. Well, a Covid sniffing canine is starting its career at Helsinki Airport and can do just that.

IF you are travelling into the Helsinki Airport you may receive more than just your security passport check.

A test project has begun at the airport in which one of two canines has been trained to detect the virus by sniffing the sweat of arriving passengers.

This will hopefully see an end to sticks being shoved up your nose and instead replaced with a dog sniffing your neck sweat!

Passengers are being asked to volunteer their neck sweat, wiping it and leaving the swab in a box.

The process continues with the sniffer dogs sniffing boxes containing different scents including the neck sweat box.

In a process that takes about one minute, if the dog sniffs a positive result from the neck sweat box, the person is sent to the airport’s health centre for a free virus test.

University of Helsinki researcher Anna Hielm-Björkman told The Washington Post, “Preliminary research suggests that the doggy sniff test might be more effective at detecting coronavirus infections than the standard polymerase chain reaction or antibody test”

Speaking about the dogs, she continued, “[they] can also find [people] that are not yet PCR positive but will become PCR positive within a week.”

According to International Airport Review, only two dogs are currently working as part of the disease detection unit, but 14 others are being trained for the job.

As quick detection devices are becoming increasingly more sort after, one 8-year-old greyhound mix named Kössi learned to identify the scent of Covid-19 in just seven-minutes.

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