Meet Casper and Jaya, the two ‘specialist’ military dogs trained to screen samples and detect COVID-19 cases. Casper is a two-year-old male Cocker Spaniel, and Jaya, a one-year-old female Chippiparai. They are the first two canines trained to detect COVID-19 cases from sweat and urine samples.
Since November 2020, Casper and Jaya have been deployed in Chandigarh and Delhi. They have been screening samples of soldiers posted to forward areas of the Northern Command.
A dog can screen approximately 100 samples in an hour with a rest period of five minutes after every 15 minutes.
According to Lt. Col. Surender Saini, instructor at the Army’s Remount Veterinary Corps (RVC) in Meerut, these dogs can detect COVID-19 with 95% accuracy.
