FIU Researchers Train Dogs To Sniff Out COVID On Campus

FIU Researchers Train Dogs To Sniff Out COVID On Campus A team of Florida International University researchers have trained detector dogs to accurately identify the COVID-19 virus. cbs4kevin CBS Miami

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A team of Florida International University researchers have trained detector dogs to accurately identify the COVID-19 virus.

The dogs will be working on campus this spring as part of the effort to control the spread of the virus. ...

According to FIU Provost and Executive Vice President Kenneth Furton, the school’s canines are taking different approach than the dogs being used to screen fans at Heat games.

“Our dogs are actually being used to search surfaces. So we’re looking for where people have been, you know, mostly students had been sitting in seats,” he explained. “The dogs alert gives an extra layer of protection that we can do decontamination. Whereas at the Heat they’re actually screening people with before they come into the arena.”

Furton said the dogs have been found to be over 90% reliable with a very low false positives rate.

“In many respects, they’re even more reliable than then some of the laboratory tests that we currently have,” he said.

The training for these dogs, Furton said, is very similar to that of drug and bomb detection canines.  ...