Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 11, 2025
11:00
High-throughput Detection of Respiratory Pathogens in Animal Specimens by Nanoscale PCR
Published on: November 28, 2016
12.1K
Discrimination of SARS-CoV-2 Infections From Other Viral Respiratory Infections by Scent Detection Dogs
Nele Alexandra Ten Hagen1, Friederike Twele1, Sebastian Meller1
1Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
Frontiers in Medicine
|December 6, 2021
Summary
Detection dogs can distinguish severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections from other viral illnesses with high specificity. However, their sensitivity was lower than in previous studies, requiring diverse training samples for reliable COVID-19 screening.
Area of Science:
- Veterinary Medicine
- Infectious Disease Epidemiology
- Canine Olfaction Research
Background:
- The containment of SARS-CoV-2 relies heavily on testing infected individuals.
- Detection dogs offer a potential avenue for mass screening of SARS-CoV-2.
- Prior studies confirmed canines' ability to detect SARS-CoV-2, but their capacity to differentiate it from other viral infections remained unexamined.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the ability of trained dogs to discriminate between SARS-CoV-2 infections and other viral infections.
- To assess canine performance in identifying SARS-CoV-2 using various sample types and distractor viruses.
Main Methods:
- Twelve dogs were trained to detect SARS-CoV-2 positive samples.
- Three distinct test scenarios were employed using naso- and oropharyngeal swabs and cell culture samples.
- A randomized, double-blind study design incorporated distractor samples from 15 different viruses causing COVID-19-like symptoms.
Main Results:
- In test scenario I, dogs achieved a mean diagnostic sensitivity of 73.8% and specificity of 95.1% for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in swab samples.
- In scenarios II and III (using cell culture samples), mean diagnostic sensitivities were 61.2% and 75.8%, with specificities of 90.9% and 90.2%, respectively.
- All test scenarios demonstrated specificities exceeding 90%, indicating successful discrimination between SARS-CoV-2 and other viral infections.
Conclusions:
- Dogs can reliably distinguish SARS-CoV-2 infections from other viral infections, with specificities consistently above 90%.
- The diagnostic sensitivities observed in this study were lower compared to previous research.
- To enhance reliability for COVID-19 screening, training protocols for detection dogs must incorporate a diverse range of viral respiratory tract infections.
