#NASCAR’s sniffer dogs can detect COVID-19 98% accuracy

Extrasensory dogs are being trained to sniff out COVID-19 in human sweat with accuracy that compares closely to traditional tests.

International researchers have claimed that well-trained dogs have the ability to correctly identify coronavirus patients at reported rates of 94% to 98%, according to some studies. If proven effective, they say these dogs could be an asset to public health officials, who could place the skilled sniffers in high-traffic hubs including airports, train terminals and public events.

Among the first to launch their canine-based coronavirus testing program: NASCAR. Race officials said Wednesday that they had hired the 360 K9 Group, based in Alabama and Florida, to monitor for infected guests during their most recent event — last Sunday’s Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway — and will continue the effort on a “trial basis” for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.

“We think that these dogs and this capability is going to allow us to rapidly confirm that all of those people entering the essential footprint on Sunday — that’s race teams, that’s NASCAR officials, that’s the vendors that work inside the garage — all those folks are COVID-free or not,” said Tom Bryant, NASCAR managing director of racing operations, in a statement on Nascar.com. “The ability to do that has kind of been the math problem that we have continuously tried to solve since March of last year.”

Researchers say these dogs can pinpoint coronavirus infections in “only one to two seconds,” according to Thai veterinarian Kaywalee Chatdarong, who led research on a group of Labrador retrievers. Their dog cohorts boast a coronavirus detection accuracy rate of 95%, they told Reuters Wednesday.

Chatdarong also suggested that, with more practice, the dogs could diagnose even faster.

“In the future, when we send them to airports or ports, where there is an influx of commuters, they will be much faster and more precise in detecting the virus than temperature checks,” said Chatdarong. Indeed, these dogs have already been employed at airports in Helsinki, Dubai and elsewhere.

Several training units across the US have joined in the effort to use dogs as yet another line of defense against the spread of coronavirus, such as Florida-based K9 groups BioScent K9 and K9 PI.

Though still a relatively novel approach to disease detection, the researchers have relied on dogs in the past to help hunt for a number of diseases that can be identified in human sweat and in other animals, including some cancers and flu strains.

It could be some time before we see these detector dogs used widely as the Food & Drug Administration refines regulations over animal-based disease testing, which has not been clearly defined by the agency, according to the Food and Drug Law Institute.