A health authority is recruiting extra staff in a bid to help smokers who are taking a new anti-tobacco wonder drug.

East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Health Authority is taking on smoking counsellors to work with people who are taking Zyban.

The drug helps people stop craving nicotine but the manufacturers stress it also requires intensive support and ongoing counselling.

The authority is increasing the numbers of sessions it offers and hiring new counsellors to help cope with a backlog of people who want their GPs to prescribe the drug. A counsellor who works in Brighton and Hove and part of Lewes district one day a week will now work full-time and cover people living in Newhaven and Peacehaven.

A counsellor covering Eastbourne and Wealden districts one day a week will begin working two days a week.

Services in Hastings and Rother disctricts will be extended from one to three days a week.

Currently, all the sessions are one-to-one but these could change to group sessions to cope with demand.

A total of three people have been offering advice to pregnant women on how to give up since the drug was introduced, said an authority spokeswoman.

She added: "Zyban is a new drug which offers another choice to GPs to help smokers quit, but it is not suitable for everybody because it has certain side effects and reacts with other medicines.

"It will not benefit people unless intensive counselling and support is also given."

West Sussex Health Authority's GPs also offer the drug.

A spokeswoman for the authority said GPs are advised on the most appropriate and cost-effective ways of prescribing the drug.