UAE starts using police dogs to detect Covid-19

ABU DHABI: The Ministry of Interior of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has started using K9 police dogs to detect COVID-19.

The UAE Ministry of Interior successfully completed trials on K9 police dogs in enhancing its preventive and precautionary measures and efforts aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, a statement from the ministry revealed on Wednesday.

Figures from the experiments indicate that the dogs would be able to quickly detect infected cases, help protect key sites, deal with huge crowds and secure large events, airports, and other places. The ministry carried out experiments in the UAE and relied on the high speed sampling from the armpits of presumed cases.

The detection of presumed COVID-19 cases achieved approximately 92 percent in overall accuracy, according to the Ministry of Interior’s data and studies. It is recorded that the UAE has completed the stage of field experimentation with precedence over a number of countries that are still in advanced stages of studying the extent of the applicability of this innovative scientific practice. These trials were carried out in cooperation with different police departments, the Ministry of Health and Community Development, Federal Customs Authority, Abu Dhabi and Dubai Health Authorities as well as the Ministry of Interior.

The UAE Ministry of Interior and its partners decided to use dogs given their previous proven capability in dealing with other contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria, thus helping authorities to stop the spread of pandemics. The ministry also held a number of brainstorming workshops and cooperated with several countries on theoretical studies and discussions on using dogs in detecting COVID-19 cases.