NHS staff will participate in the trial by donating ‘odour samples’ to see whether dogs can accurately pick up the scent of coronavirus, even in people who are asymptomatic.

If the dogs can successfully smell out Covid-19, not just in medical settings but in other sectors of society too, they could potentially screen up to 250 people an hour.

It is hoped that if the trial is successful the dogs can be used at UK airports to screen people arriving from abroad.

As part of the trial, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in collaboration with the charity Medical Detection Dogs and Durham University, volunteers will provide samples of breath and body odour by wearing a mask for three hours, socks and a T-shirt for 12 hours.

Kettering General Hospital has seen 92 staff sign up to the trial.

Staff who are due to be tested as part of routine testing in the hospital are also giving their odour samples to researchers.

Kettering General Hospital’s lead nurse for reserach, Joanne Walsh, said: ‘The dogs are trained to sniff the samples and indicate whether they are positive or negative.

‘This can then be compared with the actual test results on the person to see if the dog was right.’

The study will also include participants from 10 other hospitals.

It is hoped that across the country at least 3,500 staff will provide samples.

It comes after a drive encouraging people in England to also participate.

Patients who have mild Covid-19 symptoms and are due to have a swab test, or have had a swab test conducted in the previous 24 hours, are being recruited by researchers.

LSHTM researchers will analyse the samples to identify compounds in odour that signify when someone is infected with Covid-19.

The samples will then be sent to the Medical Detection Dogs’ training centre in Milton Keynes where the animals will undergo training to identify the virus samples.

Professor Steve Lindsay, from the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, added: ‘If we can show that our trained dogs can identify people carrying the virus, but who are not sick, it will be a game changer.’