China has removed pangolin parts from its official list of traditional medicines, state media reported, days after increasing legal protections on the endangered animal.

Pangolins were left out of the official Chinese Pharmacopoeia this year, along with substances including a pill formulated with bat faeces, the state-owned Health Times reported.

The pangolin, the world's most heavily trafficked mammal, is thought by some scientists to be the possible host of the novel coronavirus that emerged at a market in China's Wuhan city last year.

Its body parts fetch a high price on the black market as they are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, although scientists say they have no therapeutic value.