The UK has 240,000 doses of new coronavirus drug dexamethasone in stock or on order, Matt Hancock has announced.
The Health Secretary told the Commons news that a new drug has been proven to reduce the deadliness of Covid-19 is an "important moment" in the fight against the virus.
He told MPs: "This is an important moment in the fight against this virus.
"It's the first time that anyone in the world has clinically proven that a drug can improve the survival chances for the most seriously ill coronavirus patients."
Last night Boris Johnson hailed the drug as the "biggest breakthrough yet".
And he said the government had "taken steps" to ensure the UK had enough stocks of the drug to cope even if there's a second peak in infections.
The NHS will make dexamethasone available as treatment for patients on ventilators and oxygen from Tuesday afternoon.
It is a cheap and widely available drug that cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators, a study has found.
For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.
According to a Government list of medicines that cannot be exported from the UK or hoarded, dexamethasone was banned for export in tablet form on April 24, and as an oral solution or for injection on June 16.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, Boris Johnson appeared unaware of the ban on parallel exports of the drug.
Parallel exporting means buying medicines placed on the market in the UK for UK patients in order to sell them in another country in the European Economic Area (EEA).
At the Downing Street press conference, the Prime Minister said: "I'm not aware of that", and added it "sounds peculiar to me".
But he added: "Dexamethasone, as I understand it, is a drug that is produced around the world.
"It's produced very cheaply in India, it's produced in Thailand.
"It was first identified in in 1957 - it's been around a long time."
