Chilean police are training sniffer dogs to discover the coronavirus in people's sweat for an early period, after a similar trial in the UK showed encouraging results.

Four dogs are chosen for the initial training, a mixture of labradors and golden retrievers who game green"biodetector" jackets for their task. They are being trained at the Chilean Carabineros´ pro training base in the capital Santiago.

Sniffer dogs are best-known for detecting drugs, explosives and individuals but have also previously been trained to find different diseases including malaria, cancer and Parkinson's disease.

Lieutenant Colonel Cristian Acevedo Yanez, director of the authorities specialty training school, said dogs had over 3 million olfactory receptors, over 50 times those of humans, so were uniquely placed to help fight the coronavirus.

He explained the canines can play a critical part as Chile attempts to gradually reopen its schools and shops and get people back to work.

"The role of police is to fortify our detection abilities in this'new normal'," he explained. "The notion is that our dogs are in busy places such as schools, bus terminals and airports, and could detect individuals at an early phase of the disease to have the ability to isolate them and perform the right PCR test, avoiding mass contagions," he explained.

"Fundamentally these puppies, four at first, and their guides, will do is save lives.