Are sniffer dogs a reliable approach for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection?

Lippi, G. and Mattiuzzi, C. and Henry, B. M.

Diagnosis (Berl) (2021) 8: 446–449

DOI: 10.1515/dx-2021-0034

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Despite inter-individual variations in their diagnostic efficiency, dogs have been trained to investigate many human pathologies, especially cancer, diabetes, migraine, seizures and even infectious diseases. To this end, we performed a critical review and pooled analysis of current scientific literature on the performance of dogs trained for identifying severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-positive human specimens. METHODS: We carried out an electronic search in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science with the keywords "dog(s)" AND "sniffer" OR "scent" OR "smell" AND "SARS-CoV-2" OR "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" OR "coronavirus disease 2019" OR "COVID-19" within all fields, without date or language restrictions, to identify studies describing dogs’ performance for identifying SARS-CoV-2 infected material. RESULTS: Three studies could be finally included in pooled analysis, totaling 17 dogs (47% females), aged between 0.5 and 12 years. The pooled diagnostic sensitivity was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84-0.91; I (2), 85.3%), the diagnostic specificity 0.99 (95% CI, 0.99-0.99; I (2), 97.4%), whilst the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was 0.979 (standard error, 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The notable performance observed in this pooled analysis would persuade us to suggest that adequately trained dogs could represent an intriguing and sustainable resource for purposes of rapid SARS-CoV-2 mass screening.

Citation

Lippi, G., Mattiuzzi, C., & Henry, B. M. (2021). Are sniffer dogs a reliable approach for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection? Diagnosis (Berl), 8(4), 446–449. https://doi.org/10.1515/dx-2021-0034 dogs, diagnosis, coronavirus, Covid-19

Keywords

• dogs
• diagnosis
• coronavirus
• Covid-19