Trained dogs can sniff out Covid with up to 94% accuracy - including new variants

The dogs were able to sniff out Covid-19 with up to 94 per cent accuracy (Photo: PA)

Specially trained dogs are able to sniff out Covid-19 with up to 94 per cent accuracy, new research suggests.

A coronavirus infection has a distinct smell meaning canines are able to detect samples from people who have been infected but are asymptomatic, as well as those with low viral loads.

Dogs were also able to identify infections caused by the coronavirus strain that was dominant in the UK last year, along with the Kent variant which was detected later in the year.

Findings “give hope”

The findings of the UK study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, are based on six dogs who tested more than 3,500 odour samples donated by the public and NHS staff.

The dogs, Asher, Kyp, Lexia, Tala, Millie and Marlow, from the charity Medical Detection Dogs, took part in the double-blind trial.

This means that neither the research team nor the dogs knew which of the odour samples came from people infected with coronavirus, and which were Covid-free.

The study, which was part funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), showed that the trained dogs were able to correctly identify positive Covid-infected samples with up to 94.3 per cent specificity.

They were also able to correctly identify negative Covid samples with up to 92 per cent specificity.

Researchers have said the findings are very promising and give “real hope” for detecting different variants of coronavirus in the future.

Professor James Logan, head of the department of disease control at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who led the project, said: “What was great was the dogs that have been trained on the original variant transferred to the new (Kent) variant.