From oatmeal cookies, rotting apples and burnt chocolate to bleach, gasoline and the smell of wet dog - all infections have a distinct odor signature. In fact, animals are using a sniff test for proper social distancing to avoid disease. Is there a signature for COVID-19?

Researchers in several countries (e.g., US University of Pennsylvania and Florida-based nonprofit, BioScent K9, UK London School of Hygiene and Durham University, Finnish University of Helsinki and France Veterinary School) started to train dogs to detect this disease.

Preliminary results show that dogs can not only sniff COVID-19 in samples but also sniff out virus in humans at airports and train stations.

Metabolites are also screened by mass-spectrometry instruments, breathalyzer and digital nose devices (like a prototype tested in Ohio State University, Airbus/Koniku jellyfish-like instrument and Weizmann smell tracker). Owlstone Breath Biopsy goes a step further integrating analysis of volatile metabolites with viral particles or RNA in respiratory droplets.

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REFERENCES

Grandjean D, Sarkis R, Tourtier JP, Julien C, Desquilbet L. Detection dogs as a help in the detection of COVID-19: Can the dog alert on COVID-19 positive persons by sniffing axillary sweat samples? Proof-of-concept study. bioRxiv. 2020 Jan 1.

Chen H, Qi X, Ma J, Zhang C, Feng H, Yao M. Breath-borne VOC Biomarkers for COVID-19. medRxiv. 2020 Jan 1.

Shen B, Yi X, Sun Y, Bi X, Du J, Zhang C, Quan S, Zhang F, Sun R, Qian L, Ge W. Proteomic and metabolomic characterization of COVID-19 patient sera. Cell. 2020 Jan 1.

Blasco H, Bessy C, Plantier L, Lefevre A, Piver E, Bernard L, Marlet J, Stefic K, BENZ DE BRETAGNE I, Cannet P, LUMBU H. The specific metabolome profiling of patients infected by SARS-COV-2 supports the key role of tryptophan-nicotinamide pathway and cytosine metabolism.