Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov;7(11):e010276.
doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-010276.

Canine real-time detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the context of a mass screening event

Nele Alexandra Ten Hagen  1 , Friederike Twele  1 , Sebastian Meller  1 , Lisa Wijnen  1 , Claudia Schulz  2 , Clara Schoneberg  3 , Lothar Kreienbrock  3 , Maren von Köckritz-Blickwede  2   4 , Albert Osterhaus  2 , Anna-Lena Boeck  5   6 , Konstantin Boeck  5 , Viktoria Bonda  5 , Veronika Pilchová  2 , Franziska Karola Kaiser  2 , Mariana Gonzalez Hernandez  2 , Hans Ebbers  7 , Julia Hinsenkamp  8 , Isabell Pink  9 , Nora Drick  9 , Tobias Welte  9 , Michael Peter Manns  10 , Thomas Illig  11 , Andreas Puyskens  12 , Andreas Nitsche  12 , Christiane Ernst  13 , Michael Engels  13 , Esther Schalke  14 , Holger Andreas Volk  15   16
Affiliations

Canine real-time detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the context of a mass screening event

Nele Alexandra Ten Hagen et al. BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Introduction: Previous research demonstrated that medical scent detection dogs have the ability to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 positive from negative samples with high diagnostic accuracy. To deploy these dogs as a reliable screening method, it is mandatory to examine if canines maintain their high diagnostic accuracy in real-life screening settings. We conducted a study to evaluate the performance of medical scent detection dogs under real-life circumstances.

Methods: Eight dogs were trained to detect SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR-positive samples. Four concerts with a total of 2802 participants were held to evaluate canines' performance in screening individuals for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sweat samples were taken from all participants and presented in a line-up setting. In addition, every participant had been tested with a SARS-CoV-2 specific rapid antigen test and a RT-qPCR and they provided information regarding age, sex, vaccination status and medical disease history. The participants' infection status was unknown at the time of canine testing. Safety measures such as mask wearing and distance keeping were ensured.

Results: The SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs achieved a diagnostic specificity of 99.93% (95% CI 99.74% to 99.99%) and a sensitivity of 81.58% (95% CI 66.58% to 90.78%), respectively. The overall rate of concordant results was 99.68%. The majority of the study population was vaccinated with varying vaccines and vaccination schemes, while several participants had chronic diseases and were under chronic medication. This did not influence dogs' decisions.

Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 scent detection dogs achieved high diagnostic accuracy in a real-life scenario. The vaccination status, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, chronic disease and medication of the participants did not influence the performance of the dogs in detecting the acute infection. This indicates that dogs provide a fast and reliable screening option for public events in which high-throughput screening is required.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS; diagnostics and tools.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation for test procedure (created with BioRender.com). PoC, point of care.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Guest C, Dewhirst SY, Lindsay SW, et al. . Using trained dogs and organic semi-conducting sensors to identify asymptomatic and mild SARS-CoV-2 infections: an observational study. J Travel Med 2022;29:taac043. 10.1093/jtm/taac043 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Eskandari E, Ahmadi Marzaleh M, Roudgari H, et al. . Sniffer dogs as a screening/diagnostic tool for COVID-19: a proof of concept study. BMC Infect Dis 2021;21:243. 10.1186/s12879-021-05939-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vesga O, Agudelo M, Valencia-Jaramillo AF, et al. . Highly sensitive scent-detection of COVID-19 patients in vivo by trained dogs. PLoS One 2021;16:e0257474. 10.1371/journal.pone.0257474 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Grandjean D, Sarkis R, Lecoq-Julien C, et al. . Can the detection dog alert on COVID-19 positive persons by sniffing axillary sweat samples? A proof-of-concept study. PLoS One 2020;15:e0243122. 10.1371/journal.pone.0243122 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Maia RdeCC, Alves LC, da Silva JES, et al. . Canine olfactory detection of SARS-COV2-Infected patients: a one health approach. Front Public Health 2021;9:647903. 10.3389/fpubh.2021.647903 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types