Thursday, September 24, 2020

Nearly 100% Accuracy - The Dogs Have It

 


Covid-19 tests have a wide degree of accuracy.  Dogs on the other hand appear to be able to detect Covid-19 with near 100% accuracy.  In Finland, four Covid-19 "sniffer" dogs started work this week.

Four Covid-19 sniffer dogs have begun work at Helsinki airport in a state-funded pilot scheme that Finnish researchers hope will provide a cheap, fast and effective alternative method of testing people for the virus.

A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete, according to Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki, who is overseeing the trial.

Dogs are also able to identify Covid-19 from a much smaller molecular sample than PCR tests, Helsinki airport said, needing only 10-100 molecules to detect the presence of the virus compared with the 18m needed by laboratory equipment.

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