Prepare to be stopped and sniffed at charity Christmas Fayre near Buckingham

Medical Detection Dogs' trained Covid-19 detection dogs will be screening visitors to Christmas event on Friday
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Visitors to a charity's Christmas Fayre near Buckingham on Friday can expect to be stopped and scanned by experts.

But it won't be human beings who are screening people at the Medical Detection Dogs Christmas Fayre - it will be the charity's very own trained sniffer dogs.

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For years, Medical Detection Dogs, based at Greenway Business Park, Great Horwood, has been training dogs to use their amazing sense of smell to detect the odour of diseases such as cancer.

Gunner, one of the Covid-19 detection dogsGunner, one of the Covid-19 detection dogs
Gunner, one of the Covid-19 detection dogs

And since the start of the pandemic, the charity has been working to train dogs to detect the smell of Covid-19.

In collaboration with The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Durham University, Medical Detection Dogs has already proved that dogs can scent the disease on samples in its training room, with up to 94 per cent accuracy.

The charity has now moved on to training dogs on people in real-world settings.

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And as part of the trial, some of the team of Covid-19 detection dogs will be hard at work screening people on arrival at the Medical Detection Dogs Christmas Fayre on Friday, November 26.

The charity says this will provide an extra layer of defence for visitors to the fayre, including some of its clients who have complex medical conditions and are still very vulnerable.

All are welcome to attend the Medical Detection Dogs Christmas Fayre, at 3 Millfield, Greenway Business Park, Winslow Road, Great Horwood, MK17 0NP, on Friday, November 26from 4pm to 8pm.

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