Training has begun at the University of Adelaide and at the Australian Border Force’s National Detector Dog Program Facility in Victoria as part of a joint venture into determining the feasibility of training COVID-19 detector dogs.
Leading experts say previous studies have shown dogs can detect odours produced by the human body’s response to viral infections. Dr Anne-Lise Chaber from the University of Adelaide said the training would test the accuracy of the dogs in detecting “volatile organic compounds” in the sweat samples of COVID-positive people.
“Dogs could be deployed in airports and also used to screen staff in hospitals and travellers in quarantine,” she said.
My understanding is they will be using German Shepherds to minimise language barriers. As an aside anyone remember the trained talcum powder sniffing dogs after the gear was switched