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Millions more Australians will have access to life-saving antiviral COVID-19 treatment from tomorrow in a move to stem hospital admissions.

The drugs will be available to everyone aged over 70 and those over 50 who have health conditions such as obesity or diabetes.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), which advises which drugs should be put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, has recommended changes to the eligibility criteria.

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Dr Daniel Nour of Street Side Medics, a non-profit medical association, told Today the medication should reduce the number of hospitalisations in Australia.

"That is what the studies show, it reduces hospitalisations and mortality," he said.

"The antiviral by its design and definition aims to stop the replication of the virus to give your body the ability to fight back … the ability for our body to respond quicker and hopefully suppress severe infection."

Australians aged over 70 who test positive to COVID-19 will be able to access the antivirals, known as Lagevrio and Paxlovid, on the PBS from tomorrow.

GPs can write a script for them.

People aged over 50 with at least two underlying serious health conditions, as well as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people aged 30 and older with at least two health risk factors, can also access the anti-viral drugs.

The new changes do not affect the ability of people aged 18 and older who are severely immunocompromised or have severe intellectual or physical disabilities needing residential care, as well as people with cerebral palsy or down syndrome, from requesting antiviral treatment.

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People who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid antivirals and those with severe kidney or liver disease should not take Paxlovid.

Men who take Lagevrio are advised to use contraception while taking the antiviral and for three months after.

Meanwhile, millions of Australians will become eligible for a fourth COVID jab from tomorrow.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group last week recommended that people aged 50 to 64 years old should receive a fourth dose, while people aged 30 to 49 years old may choose to have a fourth dose.

People aged 65 and over are already eligible for a fourth dose.

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Russian forces are raising "true hell" in Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, despite assessments they were taking an operational pause, a regional governor said Saturday, while another Ukrainian official urged people in Russian-occupied southern areas to evacuate quickly "by all possible means" before a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Deadly Russian shelling was reported in Ukraine's east and south.

The governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhyi Haidai, said Russia launched more than 20 artillery, mortar and rocket strikes on the region overnight and its forces were pressing toward the border with the Donetsk region.

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"We are trying to contain the Russians' armed formations along the entire front line," Haidai wrote on Telegram.

Last week, Russia captured the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the city of Lysychansk.

Analysts predicted Moscow's troops likely would take some time to rearm and regroup.

But "so far there has been no operational pause announced by the enemy".

"He is still attacking and shelling our lands with the same intensity as before," Haidai said.

He later said the Russian bombardment of Luhansk was suspended because Ukrainian forces had destroyed ammunition depots and barracks used by the Russians.

Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, appealed to residents of Russian-held territories in the south to evacuate quickly so the occupying forces could not use them as human shields during a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"You need to search for a way to leave, because our armed forces are coming to de-occupy," she said.

"There will be a massive fight."

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Speaking at a news conference late Friday, Vereshchuk said a civilian evacuation effort was underway for parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

She declined to give details, citing safety.

It was not clear how civilians were expected to safely leave Russian-controlled areas while missile strikes and artillery shelling continue in surrounding areas, whether they would be allowed to depart or even hear the government's appeal.

The war's death toll continued to rise.

Five people were killed and eight more wounded in Russian shelling Friday of Siversk and Semyhirya in the Donetsk region, its governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, wrote Saturday on Telegram.

In the city of Sloviansk, named as a likely next target of Russia's offensive, rescuers pulled a 40-year-old man from the rubble of a building destroyed Saturday by shelling.

Kyrylenko said multiple people were under the debris.

Russian missiles also killed two people and wounded three others Saturday in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih, according to regional authorities.

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"They deliberately targeted residential areas," Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.

Kryvyi Rih's mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, asserted on Facebook that cluster munitions had been used and urged residents not to approach unfamiliar objects in the streets.

More explosions were reported Saturday evening.

Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who visited Friday to meet with Vilkul and the brigadier general who commands troops in the region.

Zelenskyy's office said he was briefed on the "construction of defensive structures," the support of the troops, the supply of food and medicine to the city and the help given people who had fled to Kryvyi Rih after being driven out of their homes elsewhere in Ukraine.

In northeast Ukraine, a Russian rocket strike on Saturday hit the centre of Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, injuring six people, including a 12-year-old girl, authorities said.

"An Iskander ballistic missile was probably used," the Kharkiv regional prosecutor's office said.

"One of the missiles hit a two-story building, which led to its destruction. Neighbouring houses were damaged."

The city has been targeted throughout the war, including several times in the past week. As survivor Valentina Mirgorodksaya dabbed at a cut on her cheek, first responders warily inspected the building shattered in Saturday's strike.

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Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych reported on Telegram that six Russian missiles were fired at his city in southern Ukraine near the Black Sea, but caused no casualties.

"On this day alone, Russia hit Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Krivyi Rih, villages in the Zaporizhzhia region," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

"It hit residential areas, absolutely consciously and on purpose. For days on end, the brutal strikes of Russian artillery, don't stop. Such terrorist action can be stopped only with weapons, modern and powerful ones."

Russian defence officials claimed Saturday that their forces destroyed a hangar housing US howitzers in the Donetsk region, near the town of Chasiv Yar.

There was no immediate response from Ukraine.

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In other developments on Saturday:

Zelenskyy dismissed several ambassadors, including Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, who has been an outspoken advocate of Kyiv's cause but also ruffled feathers in Berlin.

He was persistently critical of Germany's perceived slowness to provide heavy weapons.

He also faced criticism for an interview in which he defended Stepan Bandera, a controversial World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Melnyk was only speaking for himself.

Zelenskyy said the dismissals of the ambassadors were part of a routine rotation. Melnyk had served in the post since 2015.

Ukraine's national police force said it was opening a criminal investigation into the Russian military's alleged destruction of crops in the southern Kherson region.

In a Telegram post, it accused Russian troops of not allowing residents to put out fires in fields and otherwise sabotaging the harvest.

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The British Defense Ministry said Russian forces in Ukraine were now being armed with "obsolete or inappropriate equipment," including MT-LB armoured vehicles taken out of long-term storage that do not provide the same protection as modern tanks.

"While MT-LBS have previously been in service in support roles on both sides, Russia long considered them unsuitable for most frontline infantry transport roles," the British ministry said on Twitter.

Ukraine's sports minister, Vadym Gutzeit said 100 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed either on the battlefield or from Russian shelling, while 22 were captured by Russian forces.

In a Facebook post, Gutzeit said more than 3000 athletes are now in uniform.

The newly opened fast-food chain that replaced McDonald's in Russia will temporarily halt serving hot chips, according to Russian media.

With a shortage of the potato type needed to make fries, the popular side dish to accompany burgers is off the menu at the "Tasty and That's It" restaurants which replaced the US fast-food giant.

The company says it expects to have fries back on the menu by the northern autumn, the BBC reports.

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McDonald's joined the exodus of multinational companies after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

The American company sold its restaurants to a Russian businessman, and in June several of its outlets reopened under the name "Vkusno i Tochka", or "Tasty and That's It" in the English language.

But only weeks after the launch, the popular side dish is in short supply.

The Sistema PBO company that now manages the former McDonald's restaurants told Russian news agency Tass that last year's poor harvest impacted supplies of the potato variety needed to make fries.

It also said while it tried to use potatoes from Russia, it had been unable to obtain them from overseas producers.

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The first McDonald's in Russia opened in the middle of Moscow more than three decades ago, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a powerful symbol of the easing of Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.

McDonald's was the first American fast-food restaurant to open in the Soviet Union, which would collapse in 1991.

McDonald's decision to leave came as other American food and beverage giants including Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Starbucks have paused or closed operations in Russia in the face of Western sanctions.

McDonald's said it expects to record a charge against earnings of between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion over leaving Russia.

– Reported with Associated Press

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Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister agreed to resign on Saturday after the country’s most chaotic day in months of political turmoil, with protesters storming both officials’ homes and setting fire to one of the buildings in a rage over the nation's severe economic crisis.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he will leave office once a new government is in place, and hours later the speaker of parliament said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would step down Wednesday.

Pressure on both men grew as the economic meltdown set off acute shortages of essential items, leaving people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities.

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Police had attempted to thwart promised protests with a curfew, then lifted it as lawyers and opposition politicians denounced it as illegal. Thousands of protesters entered the capital, Colombo, and swarmed into Rajapaksa’s fortified residence.

Video images showed jubilant crowds splashing in the garden pool, lying on beds and using their cellphone cameras to capture the moment. Some made tea, while others issued statements from a conference room demanding that the president and prime minister go.

It was not clear if Rajapaksa was there at the time, and government spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said he had no information about the president’s movements.

Protesters later broke into the prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, Wickremesinghe’s office said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was there when the incursion happened.

Earlier police fired tear gas at protesters who gathered in the streets to march on the presidential residence, waving flags, banging drums and chanting slogans. In all, more than 30 people were hurt in Saturday's chaos.

Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a televised statement that he informed Rajapaksa that parliamentary leaders had met and decided to request he leave office, and the president agreed. However Rajapaksa will remain temporarily to ensure a smooth transfer of power, Abeywardena added.

“He asked me to inform the country that he will make his resignation on Wednesday the 13th, because there is a need to hand over power peacefully,” Abeywardena said.

“Therefore there is no need for further disturbances in the country, and I urge everyone for the sake of the country to maintain peace to enable a smooth transition.”

Opposition lawmaker Rauff Hakeem said a consensus was reached for the speaker of parliament to take over as temporary president and work on an interim government.

Wickremesinghe announced his own impending resignation but said he would not step down until a new government is formed, angering protesters who demanded his immediate departure.

“Today in this country we have a fuel crisis, a food shortage, we have the head of the World Food Program coming here and we have several matters to discuss with the IMF,” Wickremesinghe said.

“Therefore, if this government leaves there should be another government.”

Wickremesinghe said he suggested to the president to have an all-party government, but did not say anything about Rajapaksa’s whereabouts. Opposition parties were discussing the formation of a new government.

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Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister in May in the hope that the career politician would use his diplomacy and contacts to resuscitate a collapsed economy. But people’s patience wore thin as shortages of fuel, medicine and cooking gas only increased and oil reserves ran dry. Authorities have also temporarily shuttered schools.

The country is relying on aid from India and other nations as leaders try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund. Wickremesinghe said recently that negotiations with the IMF were complex because Sri Lanka was now a bankrupt state.

Sri Lanka announced in April that it was suspending repayment of foreign loans due to a foreign currency shortage. Its total foreign debt amounts to $51 billion, of which it must repay $28 billion by the end of 2027.

Months of demonstrations have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty, which has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades but is accused by protesters of mismanagement and corruption. The president’s older brother resigned as prime minister in May after violent protests saw him seek safety at a naval base.

With fuel costs making other forms of travel impossible for many, protesters crowded onto buses and trains Saturday to get to the capital, while others made their way on bicycles and on foot. At the president’s seaside office, security personnel tried in vain to stop protesters who pushed through fences to run across the lawns and inside the colonial-era building.

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At least 34 people including two police officers were hurt in scuffles. Two were in critical condition, while others sustained minor injuries, according to an official at the Colombo National Hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Privately owned Sirasa Television said at least six of its workers, including four reporters, were hospitalised after being beaten by police while covering the protest at the prime minister’s home.

Sri Lanka Medical Council, the country’s top professional body, warned that hospitals were running with minimum resources and would not be able to handle any mass casualties from the unrest.

Protest and religious leaders said Rajapaksa has lost his mandate and it is time for him to go.

“His claim that he was voted in by the Sinhala Buddhists is not valid now,” said Omalpe Sobitha, a prominent Buddhist leader. He urged parliament to convene immediately to select an interim president.

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung on Friday asked people to protest peacefully and called for the military and police “to grant peaceful protesters the space and security to do so".

“Chaos and force will not fix the economy or bring the political stability that Sri Lankans need right now,” Chung tweeted.