corona
Sniffer dogs can separate Sars-CoV-2 from 15 other pathogens
Corona sniffer dog Bea (German Shepherd) sniffs in sample containers in the test station. Photo: Michael Matthey / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A study with dogs as corona sniffers shows: The dog’s noses can distinguish the tested pathogens – based on by-products that arise during the infection.
According to a study, medical sniffer dogs are able to differentiate the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus from 15 other viral respiratory pathogens with high accuracy.
As the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (TiHo) announced on Friday, the study by an international team of researchers led by the University of Lower Saxony shows for the first time that the substances that the animals smell in people infected with corona are specific for Sars-CoV-2. According to the information, the sniffer dogs do not smell the viruses themselves, but rather volatile organic compounds that are formed during metabolic processes after a virus infection. The researchers have now published their results in the journal “Frontiers in Medicine”.
Samples tested with various viral pathogens
“It is known that infectious respiratory diseases can release specific volatile organic compounds, and this study shows that dogs can recognize these unique patterns of volatile organic compounds from Sars-CoV-2,” shared Holger Volk, professor and head of the Clinic for Small Animals TiHo, with.
For the study, the researchers used twelve sniffer dogs that were trained with inactivated saliva samples from corona patients. The animals were given saliva and swab samples as well as samples from infected cell cultures. This included various viral pathogens: Sars-CoV-2, but also influenza pathogens such as influenza A and B, the rhinovirus and other coronaviruses such as the Mers coronavirus. Saliva from healthy volunteers and non-infected cell cultures served as control samples.
Dogs can distinguish the pathogens
“In all three test scenarios, the mean specificities were over 90 percent, which suggests that dogs can distinguish Sars-CoV-2 infections from other viral infections,” the researchers wrote in their study. The specificity refers to the detection of negative control samples.
With the mean sensitivity, which indicates how well positive samples are detected, lower values were achieved in the three test scenarios compared to earlier studies. In order for sniffer dogs to be able to reliably differentiate corona infections from other respiratory infections, it is necessary to include a large number of samples of various viral respiratory infections in the dogs odor training, wrote the study authors.
In addition to the TiHo, the German Armed Forces, the Hanover Medical School and the Hamburg-Eppendorf University Medical Center were also involved in the study.