Ruptly

A centre in Tehran has been training dogs to detect people infected with the novel coronavirus, as filmed on Wednesday.

The project is being carried out by the SK9 dog school in cooperation with the Iranian army and medical authorities.

“Samples of the virus were taken from different hospitals and were sent to us and we did not know which one was positive or negative. The test was done in front of different organizations, both colleagues and referees. The dogs could detect the positive and negative samples in around 65.4 percent of cases,” said Esmaeil Skandari, Director of Genetic Improvement and Sterilisation Centre of Stray Dogs 

The school has been training German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Labradors and Border Collies.

Skandari added that the sniffer dogs can "check around 250-300 people per hour to detect who has the virus inside their bodies without symptoms."