NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A new study shows that dogs are able to detect COVID-19 infections in humans, sometimes better than many of the 15-minute antigen tests.
According to Bloomberg reporter Corinne Gretler, the study from France’s National Veterinary School found the dogs’ detection reached 97% sensitivity.
“The really impressive thing is that their sensitivity rating beats that of many of these 15-minute antigen tests that have been available to consumers. And these antigen tests tend to be better at ruling out infection than at finding it,” Gretler told WCBS 880. “So, you know, it really means that virus sniffing dogs could potentially be more widely deployed in areas like airports, train stations or really wherever crowds amassed to screen people.”
The study was conducted by collecting sweat samples from humans and having the dogs sniff the vials, in order to find out which one was infected with COVID-19. Of the 335 people tested, 109 were positive and researchers did not know which samples were positive prior to the dogs sniffing them.
She explained that the trial was a lengthy process, as the dogs must first be trained to learn the unique scent of COVID-19.
“Basically, the first step would be to train the dogs, to even recognize it. And you would train them really the way you would train other dogs, sniffing out bombs or various drugs,” she explains. “Pathogens produce unique, volatile organic compounds there like scent fingerprints, and they're released by alien cells. And these signature smells are the same biological clues that allow dogs to sniff out various diseases, not just COVID-19.”
However, once the dogs are trained and can successfully detect COVID-19 in humans, they can be deployed to crowded areas, to protect against infection.
“In the real world, ideally, they would be sniffing around humans as they walk much how you see in airports with drug sniffing dogs,” she said.
In Gretler’s report, she notes that France has not been the only country to study this ability in dogs. In July, German researchers also discovered that dogs were able to distinguish saliva samples of people infected with COVID-19, 90% of the time.
She reports that Finland, Dubai and Switzerland have all started training dogs to sniff out infections.
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