These Golden Retrievers In Chile Will Sniff Out COVID-19

Members of the Chilean Police Canine Training team play with a Golden Retriever dog named Clifford, during a presentation to the press in Santiago, before the beginning of its training session aimed to detect people infected with COVID-19 by sniffing their sweat.

Chile's national police, the Carabineros, and specialists at the Universidad Catolica de Chile have begun their training. It follows in the footsteps of similar efforts taking place in France, said Julio Santelices, head of the police school of specialties.

Dogs have 330 million olfactory receptors, and an ability to detect smells 50 times better than humans. They can also smell 250 people per hour.

"The virus has no smell, but rather the infection generates metabolic changes which in turn leads to the release of a particular type of sweat which is what the dog would detect," Fernando Mardones, a Universidad Catolica professor of veterinary epidemiology, told AFP.

"The importance of this scientific study is that it will allow dogs to become biodetectors, and detect this type of illness at an early stage," Santelices told AFP.

Mardones said that there is already evidence that dogs can detect diseases such as tuberculosis, parasite infections, and even early stages of cancer. Canines can detect subtle changes in skin temperature, potentially making them useful in determining if a person has a fever.