Bengaluru: The entire world is in awe of India’s prowess in the vaccine manufacturing sector. India has exported several lakh doses of its indigenous vaccines to a myriad countries – from Sri Lanka to Bhutan to even Pakistan. 

Now, in what inspires you further – with a greater stress on Atmanirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India – the Indian Army has trained its canines to detect Covid-19 in real time. 

Reports add that Indian breed of dog Chippiparai has been successfully trained to detect the infection. These dogs can purportedly now sniff the urine and sweat samples and identity positive patients.

In a live demonstration, reports added further that these doges successfully sniffed the samples of sweat and urine of Covid positive patients in a random mixture of such samples. 

How do the dogs sniff such positive samples correctly? 

If one goes on hunting answers to this question, it lies in the fact that the dogs sniff biomarkers. Reports state that affected body tissues release unique metabolic biomarkers which are used as identifiers. 

The Indian Army’s move to train dogs to detect Covid-19 samples comes in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for Atmanirbhar Bharat in which local talents are given more prominence. At the same time, the Army has also derived some influence from countries like Germany, France inter alia where canines can easily detect diseases like cancer among others. 

With this success, the Army now has deployed more of its canine members to sniff out the virus. Interestingly, this is also the first time that dogs’ olfactory sense is being used thoroughly in the medical field. 

On the vaccine front, India became the first country to inoculate 4 million people the fastest in the world. 

The drive began earlier last month. 

India is producing two vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin. 

By June, India might add a third vaccine to its list.