Thousands hit by virus sweeping South-East

Thousands of workers are being laid low by a crippling virus sweeping the South-East.

Doctors say the highly infectious stomach bug is tightening its grip - particularly in the capital.

GP surgeries have been inundated with patients struck down by the illness, which has badly affected schools from Cornwall to northern England.

Today doctors told those affected by the bug to stay at home - warning that soldiering on at work or school would only spread the infection to others.

The illness, known as SRSV (small, round-structured virus) after the way it looks under a microscope, starts with the sudden offset of severe sickness and diarrhoea.

A spokesman for the Public Health Laboratory Service said: "It is the most common gut infection and levels peak during the winter season."