Sniffer dogs detected cases of Covid-19 more than a WEEK before lab swabs
Sniffer dogs detected cases of Covid-19 more than a WEEK before they were picked up by nasal swabs in trials at a Belgian football club
- Sniffer dogs were employed at Belgian football club KV Oostende
- Swabs from players’ armpits were taken as well as the regular PCR lab tests
- Dogs sniffed the sweaty swabs to detect any signs of infection
- The dogs were 99.5% accurate and in some cases detected infection eight days before the nose swabs
Specially-trained sniffer dogs are able to detect positive cases of Covid-19 more than a week before lab swabs, a study has found.
A pilot on the effectiveness of Covid sniffer dogs was conducted on players at Belgian football club KV Oostende.
Sniffer dogs have been rolled out as a virus screening tool for new arrivals at airports in Belgium, Finland and the United Arab Emirates.
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A pilot on the effectiveness of Covid sniffer dogs (pictured) was conducted on players at Belgian football club KV Oostende
In the Belgian trial, dogs were tasked with smelling sweaty swabs from the armpits of players for any signs of infection.
Previous studies have found a distinctive ‘corona odour’ is present from the very first day of infection.
However, currently there are no diagnostic tools able to identify it, except for the hyper-sensitive olfactory system of man’s best friend.
Flemish newspaper De Standaard reports that the dogs have an accuracy rate of 99.5 per cent.
This is akin to the sensitivity of PCR lab swabs taken from the nose, considered the gold standard of coronavirus testing.
Dogs were trained by experts at K9 Detection, based in Ostend.
K9 Detection CEO Johan Weckhuyzen said: ‘There were players who tested negative via PCR, but were found to be positive with us.
‘Eight or nine days later they turned out to be positive.
‘If they had followed our result, the infected player would have been quarantined earlier and the virus would not have spread further in the group of players.’
The football club says it is unlikely sniffer dogs will replace PCR testing entirely, but it may play a role as a mass screening tool to allow fans back into the stands.
‘Having a few thousand people take a PCR test before they are allowed to come to football is not financially and practically impossible,’ the club says.
The trial backs up findings from a recent study at a Finnish airport where the dogs stopped people who were seemingly well.
Travellers stopped by the sniffer dogs were given swab tests to see if they were carrying the virus but they all came back negative.
A few days later, however, the same supposedly-negative people told researchers they had come down with symptoms of Covid-19.
In the Belgian trial, dogs were tasked with smelling sweaty swabs from the armpits of players for any signs of infection. Previous trials have found a distinctive ‘corona odour’ is present from the very first day of infection
Flemish newspaper De Standaard reports that the dogs have an accuracy rate of 99.5 per cent. This is akin to the sensitivity of PCR lab swabs taken from the nose, considered the gold standard of coronavirus testing
KV Oostende says it is unlikely sniffer dogs will replace PCR testing entirely, but it may play a role as a mass screening tool to allow fans back into the stands.
Six sniffer dogs were trialled by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last year to see whether they could be used to detect the virus.
The results of the £500,000-study were reported to Health Secretary Matt Hancock in October, but it is unknown whether they will lead to dogs being used officially.
The three dogs involved in the Finnish study – named Miina, Kossi and Valo – had a near 100 per cent success rate in detecting the virus, said lead researcher Anna Hielm-Bjorkman from the University of Helsinki.
‘They’re actually finding PCR negatives that are going to be PCR positives in a week’s time,’ she told The Times.
