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 Working in teams of two, the COVID-trained dogs could screen a line
of several hundred people coming off a plane within half an hour,
for example, and detect with up to 94.3% sensitivity those infected,
the scientists said.
Presenting results of an early stage study - which involved some
3,500 odour samples donated in the form of unwashed socks or
T-shirts worn by members of the public and health workers - the
researchers said the dogs were even able to sniff out asymptomatic
or mild COVID-19 cases, as well as cases caused by a mutant variant
that emerged in the UK late last year.
"Dogs could be a great way to screen a large number of people
quickly and prevent COVID-19 from being re-introduced into the UK,"
said Steve Lindsay, a professor at Durham University's department of
biosciences who worked on the study.
James Logan, a disease control specialist at the London School of
Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who led the project, said the major
advantage of sniffer dogs over other screening methods such as
lateral flow testing is their "incredible speed and good accuracy
among large groups of people".
The British research, published online on Monday before being
peer-reviewed, adds to other pilot projects in Finland, Germany,
Chile and elsewhere which are trialling COVID-trained sniffer dogs
at airports.
The dogs in the UK study were trained over several weeks by being
introduced to 200 odour samples from people who had tested positive
for COVID-19, as well as 200 control samples from people who tested
negative.
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 The highest performing dogs in
the trial detected coronavirus odour in the
samples with up to 94.3% sensitivity, meaning a
low risk of false negative results, and up to
92% specificity, meaning a low risk of false
positive results. This accuracy
is higher than recommended by the World Health Organization for
COVID-19 diagnostics, Logan's team said, with the dogs outperforming
lateral flow tests, which have an overall sensitivity of between 58%
and 77%.
Independent experts cautioned that the findings would need to be
replicated in real-world situations.
"This proof of concept study suggests that trained detection dogs
could be used in places like airports, sports stadiums and concert
venues," said Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of
molecular oncology at Warwick University.
"The big question is will this approach work in the real world on
people rather than samples of socks and shirts?"
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Janet Lawrence
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