Covid live: UK reports 9,055 new cases; South Africa records highest daily cases in five months

UK reports nine deaths amid highest new cases since February; South Africa's infections jumped by 13,246 on Wednesday

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• UK coronavirus updates - live

11.32pm BST

Pfizer Inc said its oral rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz reduced death or respiratory failure in hospitalized Covid19 patients with pneumonia in Brazil, meeting the study's main goal.

Results of the study, which tested the drug in 289 hospitalized adult patients with the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Pfizer said the incidence of death or respiratory failure was 18.1% for patients treated with the drug compared to 29% for placebo. Serious adverse events occurred in 20 patients treated with the drug compared to 17 patients on placebo.

Xeljanz, which belongs to a class of drugs called JAK inhibitors and also treats the autoimmune disease ulcerative colitis, has not been approved or authorized for use in any country for the treatment of COVID-19.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE's vaccine is one of the three vaccines currently approved for emergency use in the US, Reuters reports.

11.14pm BST

Brazil has had 95,367 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,997 deaths, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The South American country has now registered 17,628,588 cases since the pandemic began while the official death toll has risen to 493,693, Reuters reports.