Is diagnostic performance of SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs reduced -due to virus variation- over the time?

ÖZGÜR BÜYÜKATALAY E., Demirbas Y., BOZDAYI G., KISMALI G., İLHAN M. N.

Applied Animal Behaviour Science, cilt.258, 2023 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 258
  • Basım Tarihi: 2023
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.applanim.2022.105825
  • Dergi Adı: Applied Animal Behaviour Science
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Animal Behavior Abstracts, Aquatic Science & Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA), BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, Psycinfo, Veterinary Science Database
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Diagnostic performance, Omicron variant, Refreshment, SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs, OLFACTORY DETECTION, SCENT DETECTION, CANINE
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Medical detection dogs have a high potential for use as alternative diagnostic tools not only for organic diseases, but also for infectious diseases. However, new variants emerging over time may affect the accuracy and sensitivity of diagnostic methods including medical detection dogs in case of viral pandemics. To the best of our knowledge, this is a pioneer study aimed to investigate diagnostic performances and generalization ability of SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs against the new variant after being trained with the original virus. Two SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs were used in this study. In total, 1002 samples including the Omicron variant were introduced to the dogs using a double-blinded design. Two different refresher training sessions were conducted to train the dogs to identify the scent of the Omicron variant. In the first refreshment training, mixed samples (original virus and Omicron variant) were used. The diagnostic performances of the dogs were significantly increased only after the second refreshment training where only the Omicron variant was introduced. This study illustrates that diagnostic performances of SARS-CoV-2 detection dogs were not consistent over time with the emerging new variants. Thus, refreshment training with new variant(s) should be conducted with every new variant which may affect the diagnostic performances of those dogs in such infectious outbreaks.