From CHARLOTTE NAMBADJA of The Namibian
NAMIBIA is the first country in Africa to venture into training dogs to sniff out Covid-19.
People who are infected with the virus are said to have a distinct smell, which beagles and German shepherds are able to detect.
With the number of Covid-19 cases rising in the country on a daily basis, the University of Namibia’s School of Veterinary Medicine has embarked on an initiative to train sniffer dogs to detect Covid-19 in humans.
Conrad Brain, a physiology and epidemiology lecturer at the university, says the project was initiated two months ago when Unam’s School of Veterinary Medicine realised it could help fight the pandemic in a unique way.
“Through international collaboration with veterinary schools in Finland and France, we are in the process of training our dogs, and by all indications, Covid-19 detection dogs are extremely effective in detecting people who are Covid-19 positive or negative. Once the training is complete, we aim to deploy the dogs where most needed, such as at airports and other ports of entry to Namibia,” Brain says.
Colombia is one country which claims to have had success with a similar initiative, while Namibia, Finland and France are aspiring to achieve the same.
Brain says the intitiative is a first for Africa, although dogs in Namibia have been trained to sniff out weapons and wildlife products with huge success in the past.
The pilot project at Unam is conducted by a team of veterinarians, doctors, dog trainers, dog handlers and a legal expert at Neudamm near Windhoek.
The school has also reached out to various partners to support the project.
The dogs in training are fed the Hill’s Science Diet; the Pupkewitz Foundation has provided transport cages; and Wilderness Safaris has adapted a vehicle for the project and constructed equipment to be used in the training process.
Anna Marais, associate dean of agriculture and natural resources at Unam, says the Namibian Police and the Ministry of Health and Social Services are in support of the initiative.
She says beagles are the most suitable dog species for the job, due to their extremely well-developed sense of smell.
“Dogs hardly make mistakes. They are not sniffing the virus, but the chemical the patient with the virus produces,” she says. Read more from The Namibian
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