THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary response. For the state that’s grappling with a high number of Covid cases daily, police dogs might just offer a solace as the squad has sought the approval to train the canines to detect infected people from their body odour.
The dog squad submitted the proposal in this regard to the Director of Kerala Police Academy, Thrissur, two days back. If approved, it will be a major achievement as no other state in India has dared to do this yet. The pilot project will be rolled out once the nod is given, sources told TNIE.
The initial proposal envisages pressing into service two dogs from the squad and raise a column of 10-15 dogs within a year to carry out the tedious job. Sources said the dogs first need to be trained with the body fluids, especially nasal swab, collected from the patients. The dogs will be trained in smelling the samples, which will be inactivated to protect the canines and their handlers.
Global studies have shown promising results as scientists found that the canines could easily get the whiff of the disease with a fair amount of accuracy. They felt that an infected person’s body might be producing a distinct odour, which could easily be picked up by the dogs.“The challenge we face is that unlike other countries, we never undertake an operation that could endanger the lives of the dogs and the handlers. So we are devising a standard protocol,” said an officer, who is aware of the project.
Record number of tests, TPR drops to 7.26%
T’Puram: The state recorded 6,102 positive cases when a record number of 84,007 samples were tested on Thursday. The daily test positivity rate (TPR), that has been hovering around 10%-mark for quite some time now, came down to 7.26% on the day.Meanwhile, the central team will start district visits to find ways to control the spread of the disease from Friday.