To test for COVID-19, a dog’s nose can match a nose swab

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Two years ago, several groups of scientists showed dogs could reliably identify the scent of people who had COVID-19. Now one of those groups has gone on to show that dogs are every bit as reliable as lab tests at detecting cases of COVID-19. And they’re even better than PCR tests for identifying infected people who don’t have symptoms. A big bonus: The canines are less invasive than a swab up the nose. And much cuter.

The new study trained dogs to smell sweat samples from 335 people. These canines sniffed out 97 percent of the cases that were found to be COVID-positive in PCR tests. And they found all 31 COVID-19 cases among 192 of the infected people who had no symptoms. Researchers shared their findings June 1 in PLOS One. PCR tests can sometimes go wrong. But “the dog doesn’t lie,” says Dominique Grandjean. He’s a veterinarian at the National School of Veterinary Medicine of Alfort in Maisons-Alfort, France. He also led the new study and a smaller, pilot study back in 2020.

PCR tests can sometimes go wrong. But “the dog doesn’t lie,” says Dominique Grandjean. He’s a veterinarian at the National School of Veterinary Medicine of Alfort in Maisons-Alfort, France. He also led the new study and a smaller, pilot study back in 2020.

In the latest study, the dogs sometimes mistook another respiratory virus for the coronavirus, Grandjean and his colleagues found. But overall, the canine noses picked up more COVID-19 cases than did antigen tests, like most at-home tests. And some evidence, he says, suggests the dogs can pick up symptom-free infections up to 48 hours before people test positive by PCR.

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