Detection of COVID-19 patients in sweat samples using canine sense of smell: Preliminary study

Abstract

Volatile Organic Compounds generated by changes in the metabolism of an individual have been used for the diagnosis of diseases through canine sense of smell. There is evidence of the generation of these compounds in SARS-COV-2 infection. The objective of the work was to determine the canine capacity to discriminate between positive and negative patients with COVID-19 through samples of axillary sweat. Axillary sweat samples were used from 102 hospitalized patients both COVID-19 positive (31) and negative (71), all diagnosed by rt-PCR test. For each round of detection, a single positive sample was placed and the rest of the samples (whether 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) were negative. The overall sensitivity and specificity were 93.11% (± 3.14%) and 88.52% (± 4.64%) respectively. The high sensitivity could be due to the longer train­ing thus increasing the accuracy in the detection of positive samples. The specificity was than lower another published and may be due to the fact that the negative samples came from people hospitalized for other pathologies or were companions of hospitalized family members, so that all had a hospitable odor. Detecting COVID-19 patients using canine smell has proven to be a reliable and promising sieve test.