Medical Detection Dogs is working with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University. They are training six dogs – Norman, Digby, Storm, Star, Jasper and Asher – and the clever canines could be able to detect coronavirus in just six weeks.

After completing their training the dogs could be used to check passengers arriving at UK airports, including people who are asymptomatic.

The charity has previously trained dogs to detect cancer, Parkinson’s disease and malaria.

CEO and co-founder of Medical Detection Dogs Dr Claire Guest said: “In principle, we’re sure that dogs could detect COVID-19.

“We are now looking into how we can safely catch the odour of the virus from patients and present it to the dogs.

“The aim is that dogs will be able to screen anyone, including those who are asymptomatic and tell us whether they need to be tested.

“This would be fast, effective and non-invasive and make sure the limited NHS testing resources are only used where they are really needed.”

Professor James Logan at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said: “Our previous work demonstrated that dogs can detect odours from humans with a malaria infection with extremely high accuracy – above the World Health Organisation standards for a diagnostic.

“We know that other respiratory diseases like COVID-19, change our body odour so there is a very high chance that dogs will be able to detect it.

“This new diagnostic tool could revolutionise our response to COVID-19 in the short term, but particularly in the months to come, and could be profoundly impactful.”

Professor Steve Lindsay at Durham University added: “If the research is successful, we could use COVID-19 detection dogs at airports at the end of the epidemic to rapidly identify people carrying the virus.

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“This would help prevent the re-emergence of the disease after we have brought the present epidemic under control.”

The dogs are trained by sniffing samples and indicate when they have found it.

They could also be used to tell if a person has a fever – one of the main coronavirus symptoms – as they can detect changes in the temperature of skin.

Earlier this month, Professor Karol Sikora, who is patron of the charity, said dogs could screen up to 250 people per hour for coronavirus.

He tweeted: “We know dogs can detect the odour of human diseases.

“A charity I’m a patron of, Medical Detection Dogs, believe with proper training dogs could screen up to 250 people per hour for COVID.

“They can detect cancer, malaria etc – why not Corona?”

It comes as there have been 133,495 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and 18,100 deaths.

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