An alternate Prospect in Detecting Pre and Asymptomatic COVID-19 Carriers through Odor Differentiation by HeroRATs.

Adekanmbi, Adejoke Joan; Olude, Matthew Ayokunle

A cheap, ubiquitous, sensitive, rapid, non-invasive means of screening large numbers of pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic samples at departure or arrival into ports of countries, high-risk areas and within communities. The widely used diagnostic test for the SARS-CoV 2 is the real-time reverse transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assay while antibody-based techniques are being introduced as supplemental tools but the lack of specialized nucleic acid extraction and amplification laboratories hampers/slows down timely large scale testing. The use of animals with sensitive olfactory cue as an alternate testing model could serve as an alternative to detect COVID-19 in the saliva of carriers. The African giant rats (AGR) is highly versatile and detects odorant molecules from carriers of pathogens with high percentage success after few months of training hence can be taught to detect odour differences of COVID-19 in asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic individuals. If these trained, could help to curtail further spread of COVID infections.