Page 13 - SKR-annual-report-2022-EN

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Sniffer dog Silja at Helsinki Airport.
Each dog received an identical set of 114 coronavirus patient
samples and 306 control samples for sniffing.
The dogs recognized the samples correctly 92 percent of
the time. Only small differences in accuracy were observed
between the dogs. The study confirms previous reports
suggesting that scent dogs can identify individuals with a
coronavirus infection.
“Our study set-up was of a high scientific standard. The
sample sizes were sufficiently large, and all dogs sniffed
an identical set of samples, allowing comparison of their
performances. The dogs also had to successfully indicate
sample sets containing only negative samples. Another
significant advantage was that samples were collected from
outpatients instead of hospital patients. In addition, the
testing was performed under real-life conditions rather than
in a laboratory”, says the leader of the DogRisk research
group and docent of clinical research on companion animals
Anna Hielm-Björkman at the University of Helsinki.
“I was particularly impressed by the fact that dogs
performed worse with samples we had collected from patients
suffering from a disease caused by a coronavirus variant. The
explanation is simple: The dogs had originally been trained
with the initial wild-type virus and thus they did not always
identify the variant samples as positive. This reveals their
incredible ability of discrimination”, says Anu Kantele,
Professor of Infectious Diseases and Chief Physician at the
University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital.
The third phase of the study was conducted by screening
passengers and staff at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in a real-life
situation. The scent dogs correctly identified 98.7 percent of
the negative samples.
The low number of coronavirus-positive samples in
real-life testing prevented a proper assessment of the
dogs’ performance with positive samples. However, based
on positive samples regularly given to the dogs to improve
their work motivation during this part of the study, the dogs’
Developing a nasal spray
Covid vaccine
In 2021, the Cultural Foundation provided
around EUR 1.2 million in funding to Rokote
Laboratories Finland, which is developing a
Covid-19 vaccine in the form of a nasal spray. The
company’s aim is to begin clinical testing of the
new vaccine in Finland in 2023.
The vaccine utilises gene transfer technology
which has been tested in several patient trials
related to cancer and cardiovascular disease
gene therapy. The objective is to respond to
challenges brought by new virus variants. In
the future, the nasal spray vaccine may act as
an easily administered booster for people who
have already received a series of traditional
vaccinations. Later on it may be possible to
create vaccines against other viruses using the
same method.
accuracy in correctly identifying positive samples was also PHOTOS WISE NOSE – SUOMEN HAJUEROTTELU RY AND EGIL BJÖRKMAN
98.7 percent. Such “work motivation samples” are provided
to the dogs at regular intervals to maintain their interest in
the target odour in situations and environments where the
proportion of positive samples is otherwise very low.
“Scent dogs can provide an invaluable tool for limiting viral
spread during a pandemic, serving for example at airports
and seaports. Such a reliable, cheap method of rapidly
screening a vast number of samples or of identifying passing
virus carriers in a large crowd is of value particularly when
the testing capacity with traditional methods is insufficient”,
says Anu Kantele.
“Our research group will continue to study how scent dogs
can best help society. There are many other diseases whose
research could benefit from the excellent sense of smell that
these dogs possess”, says Hielm-Björkman.
Sniffer dog Kosti took part in high-level research.