The French government has cancelled a decree allowing hospital doctors to administer hydroxychloroquine as a treatment to patients suffering severe forms of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.

The announcement comes two days after the World Health Organisation said it was pausing a large trial of the malaria drug due to safety concerns.

British medical journal The Lancet has reported that patients getting hydroxychloroquine had increased death rates and irregular heartbeats, adding to a series of other disappointing results for the drug as a way to treat Covid-19.

Read more here.