A WINTER vomiting bug is laying low workers and pupils in parts of Wirral.

Although the council recorded only a 0.5% increase in school absences in the month before last Friday, scores of residents have since reported nausea and an upset stomach.

It is believed next month’s statistics will be affected more heavily by the seasonal “norovirus”- part of a group of viruses that cause gastroenteritis.

Merseyside and Cheshire Health Protection Agency (HPA) statistics reveal there had been 24 outbreaks of the norovirus in the community in November. - classing an outbreak as a group of anything between three and fifty cases - down on the 34 recorded in November last year

Last week NHS chiefs took the decision to temporarily close Diamond Ward in Ellesmere Port hospital to new admissions after an outbreak.

Dr Kenneth Lamden, a health protection consultant with the HPA said: “Norovirus illness is unpleasant, but t is short-lived and people usually recover in anything from 12 to 60 hours without treatment, other than rest and the replacement of fluids.”