US authorities have charged the leader of a fake church and his three sons with conspiracy and contempt for selling a toxic bleach as a cure for Covid-19.

The Florida man, Mark Grenon, had seized in April on remarks by President Donald Trump — who touted the possibility that injecting disinfectant could kill the virus — to flog a product he called the Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS).

The US attorney for southern Florida said in a document Wednesday that federal health authorities had “received reports of people requiring hospitalisations, developing life-threatening conditions, and dying after drinking MMS.”