CORONAVIRUS could soon be diagnosed within seconds with a digital test that simply listens to the sound of a cough.

Researchers at Novoic, an Oxford University backed business, are appealing for volunteers to ‘donate a cough’ to the study.

The idea is that a million volunteers sign up by the end of July and based on a million coughs the new system will be able to detect what a coronavirus cough sounds like so it can tell people who has coronavirus and who doesn’t.

Novoic are known for a similar system that detects Alzheimer’s disease by listening to speech patterns.

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In order for it to work, the team need a mix of healthy and Covid-19 positive volunteers.

Anybody who signs up is being asked to cough into their phones and then send the voice clip to the researchers who will also ask a few questions about who they are and how they are feeling in a survey.

Scientists will also need to know if they have any underlying health conditions, like asthma or something that could have an impact on how they breath or talk.

Those who sign up will also be quizzed on their height, weight, age, gender, ethnicity, native language, travel history and smoking history.

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All the cough samples sent over will be stored in a ‘cough database’ which will also be used by other researchers to see if they can detect the deadly disease from somebody’s voice.

Though a cough is not the only symptom of coronavirus, developers say it could still potentially give millions of people the ability to know if they have the deadly virus within seconds and at a cheaper cost than swabbing – the current system.

Volunteers will not be given any money for helping but bosses at Novoic said: "The help may be of value to humanity."

To donate a cough and for any other information on the study visit novoic.com/covid-19