COVID-19: Thailand Enlists Dogs To Sniff Out Asymptomatic Persons

By Linda Khoo Hui Li BANGKOK, March 17 (Bernama) -- Trained by Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Veterinary Science, six Labrador Retrievers are set to sniff out COVID-19 asymptomatic persons at designated airports and ports in Thailand, with about 95 per cent accuracy rate. According to the faculty's vice dean of the research and innovations section Prof Dr Kaywalee Chatdarong in the Chula Journal website, the faculty decided to train Labrador Retrievers as they were friendly and have good sense of smell. Dr Kaywalee, who is the project’s chief, said dogs’ sense of smell is 50 times greater than human, and through the sweat produced by human, they could sniff out those carrying the virus but show no symptoms. “When a dog sits down, it means the person is asymptomatic,” he said, adding that sniffer dogs were also used in Finland, Germany, France and Australia to detect COVID-19 patients. In the future, Dr Kaywalee hope to train dogs to detect patients with other diseases, such as diabetes, depression, malaria and Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, a veterinarian specialising in infectious diseases and a member of the faculty's research team Associate Professor Dr. Somporn Techa-ngarmsuwan said the testing process is safe for the dogs, people and officials concerned. She said the research team used sweat samples from COVID-19 patients and let the dogs sniff from a distance. The project, she said, is a collaboration among the university's Faculty of Veterinary Science, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Science, and funded by Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production. To date, Thailand recorded 27,402 new COVID-19 cases and 88 fatalities. -- BERNAMA