Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Saturday, Jul 05, 2025

Trained Dogs Can Sniff Out Covid Positive Samples With 96% Accuracy

Trained Dogs Can Sniff Out Covid Positive Samples With 96% Accuracy

"This is not a simple thing we're asking the dogs to do," says Cynthia Otto, senior author on the work and director of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine Working Dog Center.
A proof-of-concept investigation published today in the journal PLOS ONE suggests that specially trained detection dogs can sniff out COVID-19-positive samples with 96 per cent accuracy.

"This is not a simple thing we're asking the dogs to do," says Cynthia Otto, senior author on the work and director of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine Working Dog Center.

"Dogs have to be specific about detecting the odour of the infection, but they also have to generalize across the background odors of different people: men and women, adults and children, people of different ethnicities and geographies."

In this initial study, researchers found the dogs could do that, but training must proceed with great care and, ideally, with many samples. The findings are feeding into another investigation that Otto and colleagues have dubbed "the T-shirt study," in which dogs are being trained to discriminate between the odours of COVID-positive, -negative, and -vaccinated individuals based on the volatile organic compounds they leave on a T-shirt worn overnight.

"We are collecting many more samples in that study -- hundreds or more -- than we did in this first one, and are hopeful that will get the dogs closer to what they might encounter in a community setting," Ms Otto says.

Through the Working Dog Center, she and colleagues have had years of experience training medical-detection dogs, including those that can identify ovarian cancer. When the pandemic arrived, they leveraged that expertise to design a coronavirus detection study.

Collaborators Ian Frank from the Perelman School of Medicine and Audrey Odom John from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia provided SARS-CoV-2-positive samples from adult and pediatric patients, as well as samples from patients who had tested negative to serve as experimental controls. Ms Otto worked closely with coronavirus expert Susan Weiss of Penn Medicine to process some of the samples in Penn's Biosafety Level 2+ laboratory to inactivate the virus so they would be safe for the dogs to sniff.

Because of workplace shutdowns due to the pandemic, instead of working with dogs at Penn Vet, the researchers partnered with Pat Nolan, a trainer with a facility in Maryland.

Eight Labrador retrievers and a Belgian Malinois that had not done medical detection work before were used in the study. First, the researchers trained them to recognize a distinctive scent, a synthetic substance known as a universal detection compound (UDC). They used a "scent wheel" in which each of 12 ports is loaded with a different sample and rewarded the dog when it responded to the port containing UDC.

When the dogs consistently responded to the UDC scent, the team began training them to respond to urine samples from SARS-CoV-2 positive patients and discern positive from negative samples. The negative samples were subjected to the same inactivation treatment -- either heat inactivation or detergent inactivation -- as the positive samples.

Processing the results with assistance from Penn criminologist and statistician Richard Berk, the team found that after three weeks of training all nine dogs were able to readily identify SARS-CoV-2 positive samples, with 96% accuracy on average. Their sensitivity, or ability to avoid false negatives, however, was lower, in part, the researchers believe, because of the stringent criteria of the study: If the dogs walked by a port containing a positive sample even once without responding, that was labelled a "miss."

The researchers ran into many complicating factors in their study, such as the tendency of the dogs to discriminate between the actual patients, rather than between their SARS-CoV-2 infection status. The dogs were also thrown off by a sample from a patient that tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 but who had recently recovered from COVID-19.

"The dogs kept responding to that sample, and we kept telling them no," Ms Otto says. "But obviously there was still something in the patient's sample that the dogs were keying in on."

Major lessons learned from the study, besides confirming that there is a SARS-CoV-2 odour that dogs can detect, were that future training should entail large numbers of diverse samples and that dogs should not be trained repeatedly on the samples from any single individual.

"That's something we can carry forward not only in our COVID training but in our cancer work and any other medical detection efforts we do," says Ms Otto. "We want to make sure that we have all the steps in place to ensure quality, reproducibility, validity, and safety for when we operationalize our dogs and have them start screening in community settings."

Cynthia M. Otto is a professor of working dog sciences & sports medicine and director of the Working Dog Center in the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Germany Seeks Taliban Deal to Deport Afghan Migrants
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Robots Compete in Football Tournament in China Amid Injuries
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Trump Asserts Readiness for Further Strikes on Iran Amid Nuclear Tensions
Qatar Airways Clears Backlog of Passengers Following Missile Threats
Iran's Parliament Votes to Suspend Cooperation with Nuclear Watchdog
Trump Announces Upcoming US-Iran Meeting Amid Controversial Airstrikes
Trump Moves to Reshape Middle East Following Israel-Iran Conflict
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
“You Have 12 Hours to Flee”: Israeli Threat Campaign Targets Surviving Iranian Officials
Oman Set to Introduce Personal Income Tax, First in Gulf
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
Trump Praises Iran’s ‘Very Weak’ Response After U.S. Strikes and Presses Israel to Pursue Peace
WATCH: Israeli forces show the aftermath of a massive airstrike at Iran's Isfahan nuclear site
We have new information and breaking details to share about what is shaping up to be a historic air campaign tonight
Six Massive Bombs Dropped on Fordow; Trump: 'A Historic Moment for the U.S., Israel, and the World'
Fordow: Deeply Buried Iranian Enrichment Site in U.S.–Israel Crosshairs
United States Conducts Precision Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites
US strikes Iran nuclear sites, Trump says
Pakistan to nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize.
Israel Confirms Assassination of Quds Force Commander in Tehran
16 Billion Login Credentials Leaked in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Breach
Senate hearing on who was 'really running' Biden White House kicks off
G7 Leaders Fail to Reach Consensus on Key Global Issues
Mass exodus in Tehran as millions try to flee following Trump’s evacuation order
Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect
China's Iranian Oil Imports Face Disruption Amid Escalating Middle East Tensions
Trump Demands Iran's Unconditional Surrender Amid Escalating Conflict
Israeli Airstrike Targets Iranian State TV in Central Tehran
President Trump is leaving the G7 summit early and has ordered the National Security Council to the Situation Room
Netanyahu Signals Potential Regime Change in Iran
Analysts Warn Iran May Resort to Unconventional Warfare
Iranian Regime Faces Existential Threat Amid Conflict
Energy Infrastructure Becomes War Zone in Middle East
Iran Conducts Ballistic Missile Launches Amid Heightened Tensions with Israel
Iran Signals Openness to Nuclear Negotiations Amid Ongoing Regional Tensions
Shock Within Iran’s Leadership: Khamenei’s Failed Plan to Launch 1,000 Missiles Against Israel
UK Deploys Jets to Middle East Amid Rising Tensions
Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi Urges Overthrow of Khamenei Regime
Wreck of $17 Billion San José Galleon Identified Off Colombia After 300 Years
Iran Launches Extensive Missile Attack on Israel Following Israeli Strikes on Nuclear Sites
Israel Issues Ultimatum to Iran Over Potential Retaliation and Nuclear Facilities
×