The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said that he takes hydroxychloroquine, a drug that he often vouches as a potential treatment for the novel coronavirus.

According to recent reports of The Hill, Trump claimed that he already consulted with the White House doctor about taking the drug.

However, the drug was not explicitly recommended to him by them since he has not been tested positive for the virus.

"I asked him what do you think," Trump was quoted as saying.

"He said, 'Well if you'd like it.' I said, 'Yeah, I'd like it. I'd like to take it.' "

Trump also disclosed that he has been taking the hydroxychloroquine for almost a week-and-half along with zinc.

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already warned against the usage of the pill outside of a hospital setting, just seven days after it approved an emergency use authorisation for the drug.

Meanwhile, the total number of people infected in the United States by the coronavirus surged to 1,550,294 with the death toll claiming more than 91,000 in the country, as per the COVID-19 data collated by the Worldometers website at 8:30 AM on this day.

Globally, the virus has infected a total of 41.80 lakh people as of now while the number of deaths has reached 316,853.