A German veterinary clinic has trained dogs that can detect COVID-19 with 94% accuracy, even if people are asymptomatic.

The dogs were conditioned to sniff out the "coronavirus odor" that is emitted from cells in infected people, said Esther Schalke, a veterinarian at Germany's armed forces school for service dogs.  

Filou, a 3-year-old Belgian Shepherd, and Joe Cocker, a 1-year-old Cocker Spaniel, are two of the dogs that are being trained at Hanover's University of Veterinary Medicine.

Holger Volk, head of the clinic, said the dogs could accurately detect COVID-19 94% of the time in more than 1,000 samples.

"So dogs can really sniff out people with infections and without infections, as well as asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID patients," said Volk.

Stephan Weil, the state premier of Lower Saxony, said he was impressed with the study and called for more tests before the dogs wereput to work in the real world.

"We now need tests in selected events," said Weil.

Sniffer dogs have already been in use at airports in Helsinki, Finland, Santiago, Chile, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Sniffer dogs have also been used to check fans at Miami Heat basketball games in the United States.

kbd/msh (dpa, Reuters)