03 JUL 2021- (Ecuador 🐕‍🦺) 'Canine units specialized in detecting people with COVID-19 are preparing in Ecuador, with the support of the French Government, in a pilot project that seeks to reinforce the efforts of the health system to fight the pandemic.- 😷

"The Ministry of Health and the Secretariat for Risk Management, which are part of the Emergency Operations Committee (COE), are promoting the project, which included a workshop given by French specialists. ☣️

This ten-day course aimed to train dogs and prepare their instructors to detect people with the disease, as a containment measure and allied to the fight against the pandemic, the Health portfolio stated in a statement.

The workshop was attended by 15 teams (can and instructor) from the Armed Forces, the Ecuadorian Red Cross, the Fire Department and the National Risk Service.

In the training and preparation process, canine units have learned to recognize people who have developed the infectious process, including asymptomatic patients.

💉 "The learning technique for dogs is through play and through the sweat samples of people who have COVID-19, this guarantees that the dog does not have direct contact with the virus and does not affect the health of the guides", explained Phillipe Sallenave, specialist in civil protection for the Government of France.

In a first phase, the canine units have demonstrated their skills in detecting patients, although in a later stage they must polish those skills, added the source.

"This proposal was born to seek a timely strategy that helps to capture early on people who have COVID, and there is the positive experience of France, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates and other countries that had favorable results with the implementation of this technique" said José Ruales, Vice Minister of Health.

The objective of the project is to establish a comprehensive health action to detect citizens who are carriers of the virus, in order to expedite the application of appropriate epidemiological fences and prevent the spread of the disease on a larger scale, the Ministry added in its statement.

This Friday Ecuador announced 1,619 new cases of COVID-19 and raised its accumulated number to 461,157 positives since the pandemic began to register on February 29 of last year.

The official report specified that the number of confirmed deaths with COVID-19 accumulated to 15,946, to which are added 5,677 "probable deaths" with the disease, for a total of 21,623 deaths." - https://www.ecuavisa.com/noticias/ecuador/ecuador-adiestra-a-unidades-caninas-para-detectar-covid-19-entre-la-gente-YG484247