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Reviews of "Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids"

Reviewers: Albertini Mariangela, Patrizia Piotti (University of Milan) | 📒📒📒◻️◻️ • Catherine Reeve (Queen's University Belfast) | 📗📗📗📗◻️

Published onMar 31, 2021
Reviews of "Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids"
key-enterThis Pub is a Review of
Scent dog identification of SARS-CoV-2 infections, similar across different body fluids
Description

ABSTRACTBackgroundThe main strategy to contain the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic remains to implement a comprehensive testing, tracing and quarantining strategy until vaccination of the population is adequate.MethodsTen dogs were trained to detect SARS-CoV-2 infections in beta-propiolactone inactivated saliva samples. The subsequent cognitive transfer performance for the recognition of non-inactivated samples were tested on saliva, urine, and sweat in a randomised, double-blind controlled study.ResultsDogs were tested on a total of 5242 randomised sample presentations. Dogs detected non-inactivated saliva samples with a diagnostic sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 95%. In a subsequent experiment to compare the scent recognition between the three non-inactivated body fluids, diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 95% and 98% for urine, 91% and 94% for sweat, 82%, and 96% for saliva respectively.ConclusionsThe scent cognitive transfer performance between inactivated and non-inactivated samples as well as between different sample materials indicates that global, specific SARS-CoV-2-associated volatile compounds are released across different body secretions, independently from the patient’s symptoms.FundingThe project was funded as a special research project of the German Armed Forces. The funding source DZIF-Fasttrack 1.921 provided us with means for biosampling.

To read the original manuscript, click the link above.

Summary of Reviews: Reviewers find great potential in this preprint on the use of scent dogs to identify SARS-CoV2 infections, however they raise a number of concerns about the clarity and conditions of the experimental methods used.

Reviewer 1 (Albertini Mariangela, Patrizia Piotti) | 📒📒📒◻️◻️

Reviewer 2 (Catherine Reeve) | 📗📗📗📗◻️

RR:C19 Strength of Evidence Scale Key

📕 ◻️◻️◻️◻️ = Misleading

📙📙 ◻️◻️◻️ = Not Informative

📒📒📒 ◻️◻️ = Potentially Informative

📗📗📗📗◻️ = Reliable

📘📘📘📘📘 = Strong

To read the reviews, click the links below.

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