Dogs can be trained to detect more than 90 percent of COVID-19 infections even when patients are asymptomatic, according to research published yesterday, which authors hope could help replace the need to quarantine new arrivals.
Using their remarkable sense of smell — which can pick up the equivalent of half a teaspoon of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool — dogs have already shown that they can sniff out maladies such as cancer, malaria and epilepsy. Several previous studies have shown proof-of-concept that dogs can detect SARS-CoV-2.
Researchers from the London School of Tropical Medicine wanted to see if dogs could detect a distinctive odor given off from chemical compounds associated with someone who is COVID-19 positive, but does no show symptoms.
Photo: Reuters
They gathered samples of clothing and masks from people who had tested positive for mild or symptomatic SARS-CoV-2.
Samples of the socks of 200 COVID-19 cases were collected and arranged in lab tests for six dogs that had been trained to indicate either a presence or absence of the chemical compound.
The dogs needed to be trained not to identify “false positives” in a bid to hack their reward system and obtain treats even if there were no COVID-19 samples in a given test.
“This means that the dog fully understands and gets a reward for a correct negative as well as a correct positive,” said Claire Guest, from the school’s Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases.
Overall, the dogs were successfully able to identify between 94 and 82 percent of SARS-CoV-2 samples. The researchers then modeled how effectively these success rates, combined with traditional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, could help detect mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.
They found that using dogs to screen arrivals at terminals, such as airports, could detect 91 percent of cases, resulting in a 2.24 times lower rate of transmission than with PCR tests alone.
Authors of the research, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, said they hoped it could replace the need for travelers to quarantine.
“The key thing is that dogs are significantly quicker than other tests,” coauthor James Logan said. “What we’re suggesting is that dogs would give the first initial screening, and then those [arrivals] that were indicated as positive would then receive a complimentary PCR test.”
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