Research suggests that early symptoms of coronavirus differ between men and women - and among different age groups.

Axar.az reports that the King's College London study, which looked at data from the Zoe Covid Symptom Study app, found that men were more likely to report shortness of breath, fatigue, chills and fever, while women were more likely to report loss of smell, chest pain and a persistent cough.

It also found those aged 60 and above were more likely to report diarrhoea symptoms - but loss of smell was less common among this age group.

Lead study author, Claire Steves, said: "It's important people know the earliest symptoms are wide-ranging and may look different for each member of a family or household.

"Testing guidance could be updated to enable cases to be picked up earlier, especially in the face of new variants which are highly transmissible."

The study - which looked at the original strain of the virus as well as the Alpha variant - also found fever was not an early feature of the disease in any age group - despite being a known Covid-19 symptom.