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In Kunheim, France, the search dog Pokaa is sniffing a sample in a retirement home
Photo: SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
Pokaa is a magnificent, two-year-old golden retriever with special skills: In the French community of Kunheim, around 30 kilometers from Freiburg im Breisgau, the specially trained corona tracking dog is being used for the first time in an old people's home.
In the future, the animal will regularly test residents and employees of the Alsatian facility for infection with the virus.
Thanks to a four-week additional training course at a French university for veterinary medicine, Pokaa can sniff out the so-called spike protein of the coronavirus in sweat samples.
It has been scientifically proven that dogs are able to detect corona infections with their excellent sense of smell.
Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover recently published a study on the subject.
Result: Sniffer dogs were able to recognize more than nine out of ten people infected with corona using sweat samples (91 percent).
In addition, they rarely falsely marked corona-negative people as positive.
When urine was presented for sniffing, the results were even better.
A study from Great Britain also provided promising findings.
Pokaa was trained by experts from the Handi'Chiens club.
He actually trains assistance dogs for the sick and old, but now wants to train 250 of his animals to be Corona search dogs, as club president Robert Kohler said.
According to the will of the Handi'Chiens association, the project at the Alsatian old people's home “La Roselière” in Kunheim is to be expanded in the future - also to homes in Germany.
To this end, the French state had been asked for money.
The additional training of a dog costs 3500 euros - which pays off quickly in view of the saved costs for laboratory tests.
ala / dpa
