TY - JOUR T1 - Canine real-time detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the context of a mass screening event JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-010276 VL - 7 IS - 11 SP - e010276 AU - Nele Alexandra ten Hagen AU - Friederike Twele AU - Sebastian Meller AU - Lisa Wijnen AU - Claudia Schulz AU - Clara Schoneberg AU - Lothar Kreienbrock AU - Maren von Köckritz-Blickwede AU - Albert Osterhaus AU - Anna-Lena Boeck AU - Konstantin Boeck AU - Viktoria Bonda AU - Veronika Pilchová AU - Franziska Karola Kaiser AU - Mariana Gonzalez Hernandez AU - Hans Ebbers AU - Julia Hinsenkamp AU - Isabell Pink AU - Nora Drick AU - Tobias Welte AU - Michael Peter Manns AU - Thomas Illig AU - Andreas Puyskens AU - Andreas Nitsche AU - Christiane Ernst AU - Michael Engels AU - Esther Schalke AU - Holger Andreas Volk Y1 - 2022/11/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/7/11/e010276.abstract N2 - Introduction Previous research demonstrated that medical scent detection dogs have the ability to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 positive from negative samples with high diagnostic accuracy. To deploy these dogs as a reliable screening method, it is mandatory to examine if canines maintain their high diagnostic accuracy in real-life screening settings. We conducted a study to evaluate the performance of medical scent detection dogs under real-life circumstances.Methods Eight dogs were trained to detect SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR-positive samples. Four concerts with a total of 2802 participants were held to evaluate canines’ performance in screening individuals for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sweat samples were taken from all participants and presented in a line-up setting. In addition, every participant had been tested with a SARS-CoV-2 specific rapid antigen test and a RT-qPCR and they provided information regarding age, sex, vaccination status and medical disease history. The participants’ infection status was unknown at the time of canine testing. Safety measures such as mask wearing and distance keeping were ensured.Results The SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs achieved a diagnostic specificity of 99.93% (95% CI 99.74% to 99.99%) and a sensitivity of 81.58% (95% CI 66.58% to 90.78%), respectively. The overall rate of concordant results was 99.68%. The majority of the study population was vaccinated with varying vaccines and vaccination schemes, while several participants had chronic diseases and were under chronic medication. This did not influence dogs’ decisions.Conclusion Our results demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 scent detection dogs achieved high diagnostic accuracy in a real-life scenario. The vaccination status, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, chronic disease and medication of the participants did not influence the performance of the dogs in detecting the acute infection. This indicates that dogs provide a fast and reliable screening option for public events in which high-throughput screening is required.Data are available on reasonable request. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are majorly included in the manuscript or uploaded as online supplemental information. Any additional data are available on request from the corresponding author on reasonable request. ER -