Stomach bug sweeps country (From Witney Gazette)

Stomach bug sweeps country

7:27pm Thursday 3rd January 2008 in Headlines

STAFF at Oxfordshire's major hospitals have managed to keep their wards open after dodging a stomach bug sweeping the UK.

Experts estimate that more than 100,000 people every week in the UK are being struck down with diarrhoea and sickness after catching norovirus, known as the winter vomiting disease.

But managers at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust said their three county sites, Oxford's John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and The Horton, in Banbury, had been left unscathed since November.

Meanwhile, there have been two outbreaks of norovirus at Oxfordshire's community hospitals. Ten patients were affected at OxComm on the Churchill Hospital site, and 12 at Townlands, in Henley.

A spokesman for Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust, which runs the county's nine community units, said the number was not unusual. She added: "Wards at both hospitals were closed, which means that the patients could not have visitors and no new patients could be admitted until 48 hours until after the last symptoms. Both reopened before Christmas."

The most recent norovirus outbreak at the ORH was at the beginning of November last year.

If you catch a severe sickness bug, the medical advice is to:

• Stay at home until two days after symptoms have subsided
• Drink lots of fluids to stay hydrated
• Take paracetamol
• Wash your hands regularly and do not prepare food for anyone else, to prevent cross infection.