Page 12 - SKR-annual-report-2022-EN

12 THE CULTURAL FOUNDATION’S YEAR

Scent dogs
at work

Sniffer dogs can be taught to reliably identify skin swabs
taken from people infected with the coronavirus.

I n 2021, the Finnish Cultural Foundation granted Researchers from the Faculties of Veterinary
EUR 205,000 for two studies on the reliability Medicine and Medicine at the University of Helsinki
of dogs in identifying people with a coronavirus and from Helsinki University Hospital jointly designed
infection. Professor Anu Kantele’s group from the a triple-blind, randomized, controlled study set up to
University of Helsinki and Professor Seppo Vainio’s test the accuracy of trained scent detection dogs where
group from the University of Oulu are in charge of the none of the trio of dog, dog handler, and researcher
research projects. knew which of the sniffed skin swab samples were
positive and which were negative. The study also
Seppo Vainio’s research group uses molecular analysed factors potentially interfering with the ability
biological and biochemical techniques to verify the of the dogs to recognize a positive sample.
reliability of sniffer dogs in detecting the virus. In
practice, correspondence is sought between skin, In the first phase of the study, the dogs were taught
blood and urine samples taken from corona-positive to discriminate the skin swab samples of coronavirus
persons and samples identified as positive by dogs. In patients from those of volunteers who had tested
the future, the research can also promote dog-mediated negative. After a training period of several weeks, the
diagnostics of other diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, dogs moved from the training centre to Helsinki-Vantaa
cancer and diabetes. Airport for the next stages of the study.

Anu Kantele’s group published a study in spring In the second phase of the study, four trained dogs
2022 which confirmed that sniffer dogs can be taught to completed a validation test to prove their discriminatory
identify individuals with a coronavirus infection from ability. During the experiment, the dogs were presented
skin swab samples. with a series of 420 samples over a period of seven days.