A One Health perspective: COVID-sniffing dogs can be effective and efficient as public health guardians

Abstract

Scent-detection dogs have been used for decades to locate drugs, explosives, toxic waste, and more. Scent dogs have been trained to alert for seizures and hypoglycemia, locate cadavers, and screen for viruses, bacterial infections, and numerous cancers. These capable dogs warrant a more significant role in public health protection. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine whether dogs could be trained to accurately identify coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections in humans. In previously published studies, dogs were trained to identify the scent of COVID-19 in inert samples with high sensitivity and specificity. In this study, 2 dogs were trained to identify the scent in live individuals (vs inert samples, as used in previous studies), a faster and more efficient screening method. These dogs tested out at 94% to 96% positive and negative agreement compared to PCR testing. These results recommend the use of scent dogs for public health applications and warrant investigation for other applications beyond COVID-19. This study is included as part of the Currents in One Health series. A partner article by Pellin et al, AJVR, January 2024, describes and evaluates the current research on the utilization of trained scent-detection dogs for the detection of disease within human and veterinary patients.