A German veterinary clinic has trained sniffer dogs to detect Covid-19 in human saliva samples, something that the canines manage to do with 94% accuracy.

The dogs are conditioned to pick up the "corona odour" that comes from cells in infected people, said Esther Schalke, a vet at Germany's armed forces school for service dogs.

Sky News reported in a feature that Filou, a three-year-old Belgian Shepherd – pictured above, and Joe Cocker, a one-year-old Cocker Spaniel, are two of the dogs being trained at Hanover's University of Veterinary Medicine.

"We did a study where we had dogs sniffing samples from Covid-positive patients and we can say that they have a 94% probability in our study... that they can sniff them out," said Holger Volk, head of the veterinary clinic.

"So dogs can really sniff out people with infections and without infections, as well as asymptomatic and symptomatic Covid patients," he added.

Dogs are being trained to detect Covid-19 in Finland and in Chile as well.