[imagesource: Matthew Childs/Reuters]

The race to find a speedy way to detect COVID-19 in infected persons has been underway since the virus first appeared in Wuhan last year.

If you’re interested, Al Jazeera put together a comprehensive timeline of the progression of the virus from the first confirmed cases in China, to where we are now.

Rapid testing is key to getting a handle on this thing.

If we can identify and quarantine carriers early on, the chances of them coming into contact with, and passing the virus on to, others is significantly reduced.

This is especially important if the plan is to reopen airports and borders, as has been the case in a number of countries.

And that’s where sniffer dogs come in.

The UK piloted research that suggested that sniffer dogs, if proven effective in identifying the virus, could be used to screen up to 250 people per hour in airports.

CNBC has more on a recently published study by German researchers say that they might have proof that the dogs have a very high success rate.

A new study, which was piloted by the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, the Hannover Medical School and the German Armed Forces found that, if properly trained, dogs were able to discriminate between human saliva samples infected with SARS-CoV-2 and non-infected samples with a 94% success rate overall.

Scientists collaborating on the research explain how it works:

The researchers trained eight dogs from Germany’s Armed Forces for one week. The trained dogs sniffed the saliva of more than 1 000 people, some of whom were healthy, and some of whom were infected with COVID-19.

The COVID-19 samples were distributed randomly, and neither the dog handlers, nor the researchers on-site, knew which was which.

The next step is to train the dogs to differentiate between the common flu virus and the comparatively more deadly novel coronavirus.

I hope those pups are receiving all the treats.

[source:cnbc]