Some NHS patients with severe coronavirus symptoms will be treated with an Ebola drug after trials proved it led to a quicker recovery.

The antiviral medicine remdesivir was developed for Ebola, but initial trials on COVID-19 patients showed it reduced the length of time they experienced symptoms from 15 days to 11.

It will now be prescribed for some adults and teenagers suffering serious coronavirus symptoms in NHS hospitals, having been given the green light as part of the the Early Access to Medicines Scheme.

The scheme, launched by the UK government in 2014, tries to make certain drugs available for the seriously ill before they have market authorisation.

The Department for Health and Social Care worked with pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, the NHS, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to clear remdesivir for use in the UK, a government spokesman said.

It has already been made available under similar initiatives in the US and Japan, following trials on 1,000 patients from the UK, USA, France, Italy and China earlier this month.

President Donald Trump has said the US government is putting its “full power and might” behind remdesivir.

Mr Trump has promoted a number of existing disease treatments as possible options for coronavirus patients, most notably the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

He has been criticised for taking the drug in a bid to ward off the virus, with the World Health Organisation having stopped trialling the treatment over fears it could cause more deaths in COVID-19 patients.

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