COVID Sniffer Dogs: Technical and Ethical Concerns

D’Aniello, Biagio; Pinelli, Claudia; Varcamonti, Mario; Rendine, Marcello; Lombardi, Pietro; Scandurra, Anna

doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.669712

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Grandjean et al (32) have also suggested that several health conditions of the positive patients could act as confounding factors for the dogs' performance to detect COVID-19. We also concur with Essler et al (15) and D'Aniello et al (33) on the need for a careful study of VOC produced by the people with COVID-19 and non-infected people. However, a further concern that should be raised is the need for specific identification of the respiratory infections of the false-positive people marked by the dogs.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…It may be prudent to consider that during their training, the dogs should be exposed to other respiratory infections at the same time they are exposed to SARS-CoV-2 as ten Haggen et al (13) have recently suggested. Thus, it is highly possible that the dogs were identifying chemical clues related to a general response of the patients to those infections (including COVID-19), as D'Aniello et al (33) proposed. These authors pointed out that all previous experiences published have been experimental exposures of the dogs to sweat, saliva, or tracheobronchial secretions of healthy or sick people with COVID-19.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dogs Detecting COVID-19 From Sweat and Saliva of Positive People: A Field Experience in Mexico

Mancilla-Tapia¹,

Lozano-Esparza²,

Orduña³

et al. 2022

Front. Med.

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ContextMolecular tests are useful in detecting COVID-19, but they are expensive in developing countries. COVID-19-sniffing dogs are an alternative due to their reported sensitivity (>80%) and specificity (>90%). However, most of the published evidence is experimental, and there is a need to determine the performance of the dogs in field conditions. Hence, we aimed to test the sensitivity and specificity of COVID-19-sniffing dogs in the field.MethodsWe trained four dogs with sweat and three dogs with saliva of COVID-19-positive patients, respectively, for 4.5 months. The samples were obtained from a health center in Hermosillo, Sonora, with the restriction to spend 5 min per patient. We calculated sensitivity, specificity, and their 95% confidence intervals (CI).ResultsTwo sweat-sniffing dogs reached 76 and 80% sensitivity, with the 95% CI not overlapping the random value of 50%, and 75 and 88% specificity, with the 95% CI not overlapping the 50% value. The 95% CI of the sensitivity and specificity of the other two sweat dogs overlapped the 50% value. Two saliva-sniffing dogs had 70 and 78% sensitivity, and the 95% CI of their sensitivity and specificity did not overlap the 50% value. The 95% CI of the third dog's sensitivity and specificity overlapped the 50% value.ConclusionFour of the six dogs were able to detect positive samples of patients with COVID-19, with sensitivity and specificity values significantly different from random in the field. We considered the performance of the dogs promising because it is reasonable to expect that with gauze exposed for a longer time to sweat and saliva of people with COVID-19, their detection capacity would improve. The target is to reach the sensitivity range requested by the World Health Organization for the performance of an antigen test (≥80% sensitivity, ≥97% specificity). If so, dogs could become important allies for the control of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in developing countries.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dogs Detecting COVID-19 From Sweat and Saliva of Positive People: A Field Experience in Mexico

Mancilla-Tapia¹,

Lozano-Esparza²,

Orduña³

et al. 2022

Front. Med.

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“…Other studies examining the capacity of scent detection dogs to detect COVID-19 have reported results ranging from 76 to 100% success rates after 1 week of training ( 2 , 9 ). Furthermore, the use of scent detection dogs represents a faster, cheaper way of disease detection that requires less technology, minimal training of operators and avoids direct contact between clients and sample collectors, thereby potentially limiting disease spread ( 12 , 13 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Germany for example, a study conducted with eight detection dogs on 1,012 randomized samples resulted in an overall detection rate of 94%, while sensitivity and specificity rates were 82.63 and 96.35%, respectively ( 9 ). Several studies have shown the ability of medical scent detection dogs to identify samples from SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals with high accuracy, highlighting the role such dogs could play in the management of a pandemic ( 10 – 13 ). Previous research showed that different body fluids, such as saliva, sweat and urine and other sample types like worn face masks are suitable for detection, which suggests that there is a general SARS-CoV-2 infection associated odor that dogs can be trained on ( 13 , 14 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have shown the ability of medical scent detection dogs to identify samples from SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals with high accuracy, highlighting the role such dogs could play in the management of a pandemic ( 10 – 13 ). Previous research showed that different body fluids, such as saliva, sweat and urine and other sample types like worn face masks are suitable for detection, which suggests that there is a general SARS-CoV-2 infection associated odor that dogs can be trained on ( 13 , 14 ). In addition, our group demonstrated that such dogs were able to differentiate SARS-CoV-2 infection from other acute viral respiratory tract infections ( 7 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of trained scent dogs for detection of COVID-19 and evidence of cost-saving

Mutesa

Gashegu²,

Remera³

et al. 2022

Front. Med.

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BackgroundOne of the lessons learned from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the importance of early, flexible, and rapidly deployable disease detection methods. Currently, diagnosis of COVID-19 requires the collection of oro/nasopharyngal swabs, nasal turbinate, anterior nares and saliva but as the pandemic continues, disease detection methods that can identify infected individuals earlier and more quickly will be crucial for slowing the spread of the virus. Previous studies have indicated that dogs can be trained to identify volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced during respiratory infections. We sought to determine whether this approach could be applied for detection of COVID-19 in Rwanda and measured its cost-saving.MethodsOver a period of 5 months, four dogs were trained to detect VOCs in sweat samples collected from human subjects confirmed positive or negative for COVID-19 by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing. Dogs were trained using a detection dog training system (DDTS) and in vivo diagnosis. Samples were collected from 5,253 participants using a cotton pad swiped in the underarm to collect sweat samples. Statistical analysis was conducted using R statistical software.FindingsFrom August to September 2021 during the Delta wave, the sensitivity of the dogs’ COVID-19 detection ranged from 75.0 to 89.9% for the lowest- and highest-performing dogs, respectively. Specificity ranged from 96.1 to 98.4%, respectively. In the second phase coinciding with the Omicron wave (January–March 2022), the sensitivity decreased substantially from 36.6 to 41.5%, while specificity remained above 95% for all four dogs. The sensitivity and specificity by any positive sample detected by at least one dog was 83.9, 95% CI: 75.8–90.2 and 94.9%; 95% CI: 93.9–95.8, respectively. The use of scent detection dogs was also found to be cost-saving compared to antigen rapid diagnostic tests, based on a marginal cost of approximately $14,000 USD for testing of the 5,253 samples which makes 2.67 USD per sample. Testing turnaround time was also faster with the scent detection dogs, at 3 h compared to 11 h with routine diagnostic testing.ConclusionThe findings from this study indicate that trained dogs can accurately identify respiratory secretion samples from asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19 patients timely and cost-effectively. Our findings recommend further uptake of this approach for COVID-19 detection.

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